The SA Revenue Service (Sars) has given former Prasa CEO Lucky Montana an ultimatum to retract “false claims” he made against them or face possible disclosure of his confidential tax affairs to the public “to correct misinformation”.
The tax authority said Montana's modus operandi of false claims to obfuscate, delay and distract creates uncalled for drama.
This comes after IOL reported that Montana had laid criminal charges against Sars commissioner, Edward Kieswetter, accusing him and other Sars officials of fraudulently doctoring a fake court judgment to justify a hefty tax bill.
“For the past five years, I have been repeatedly engaged with Sars regarding my tax affairs and have been in and out of court dealing with this. Recently, I discovered that Sars claims I owe them over R55m, including interest and penalties, up from an initial R44m,” IOL quoted him.
However, Sars says these are false accusations and have threatened a possible revelation of Montana's confidential taxpayer information to disprove his claims.
“Sars will make no further public comment in this regard for now, until Mr Montana has been notified in terms of section 67 (5) of the Tax Administration Act to withdraw publicly these false, scandalous and vexatious claims within the necessary time period of 24 hours.
“Failure to act, Sars will be compelled to disclose the otherwise confidential taxpayer information to correct the misperception.”
In a statement, Sars said they don't engage publicly with taxpayers that are engaged in dispute processes but “the false claims” must be addressed immediately.
According to Sars, they seek to apply the tax and customs laws they administer with fairness, in a transparent and even-handed manner without any external influence.
Therefore, no single person within the institution can decide who to investigate, who to audit, who to settle tax debts with and who not to. Sars relies on a variety of automated, Artificial Intelligence (AI), risk-based, data-based and research formulated case selection mechanisms, they said.
“Case selection for investigation or audit is subject to oversight from various mechanisms – committees with governance rules exist to consider and execute certain activities.
“Sars has consistently conducted its work independently and in a non-partisan manner that does not allow for external interference. Sars emphatically denies any “politically motivated witch hunts”.”
The institution also said it has become commonplace among some who have to face the consequences of their own actions, to try to obfuscate, distract, attack and use delay tactics by abusing formal complaints, oversight and investigative mechanisms and processes, and by lodging false allegations and fake unsubstantiated “complaints”.
“Our recent history is littered with examples of how persons have sought to infiltrate and manipulate the media and other public platforms to advance false claims and narratives to achieve all sorts of questionable outcomes.
“The same goes for abusing and subverting law enforcement agency resources solely to achieve sensationalist headlines. In this regard, Sars has been and will continue to engage with the various criminal justice system agencies with a view to examine how best this practice can be curbed, as it is also wasting time and precious resources of law enforcement officials.”
Sars also cautioned against a trend of “false claims” being used to distract and delay lawful proceedings, urging the media to conduct proper fact-checking before publishing unverified allegations.
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