April 17 for hearing of IRB’s RM1.6b tax suit against Najib

The Inland Revenue Board’s (IRB) application for summary judgment in the RM1.69 billion tax suit against former premier Najib Abdul Razak will be heard by the Kuala Lumpur High Court on April 17.

Justice Ahmad Bache set the hearing date during case management of the matter before him today.

Najib’s counsel, Muhammad Farhan Muhammad Shafee, confirmed the outcome of the case management when contacted today.

“The court has fixed April 17 for hearing of the (IRB) summary judgment application. The court has also set April 3 for case management,” Farhan said.

In regards to whether the former prime minister would be filing an appeal against the court’s refusal to grant his application to stay the tax suit, Farhan said, so far, there has been no such instruction from Najib to appeal.

On Feb 28, it was reported that the High Court denied Najib’s bid to stay the government's RM1.69 billion tax suit against him, pending his tax-reassessment appeal with the IRB’s Special Commissioner of Income Tax (SCIT).

In dismissing the stay application, Ahmad ruled that there were no special circumstances to justify the stay of proceedings and the application was premature in nature.

Najib’s legal team had argued, among others, that the tax suit has the intent of ousting the former Umno president from the political arena following his immense contribution to the Opposition's victory in five by-elections.

In last month's proceedings, DP Naban — a private lawyer appointed by IRB — countered that Najib’s stay application was premature and the defendant still needed to pay the RM1.69 billion in total tax sought by the IRB while waiting for the outcome of the tax-reassessment appeal.

The government filed the suit against Najib on June 25, last year.

It sought over RM1.69 billion from the former premier, with an annual five percent interest rate beginning from the date of judgment, as well as costs and other relief deemed fit by the court.

In its statement of claim, the government said Najib had failed to pay income tax from 2011 to 2017 within the stipulated 30-day period after assessment notices were issued.

As such, the amount owed each year increased by 10 percent.

It also said Najib was given 60 days to pay the taxes, together with the 10 percent increase, but he failed to do so.

Following this, Najib was slapped with another five percent increase in the 10 percent hike, bringing the total amount of income tax due to RM1,692,872,924.83.

The final amount owed each year are as follows:

2011: RM134,180,247.10

2012: RM370,674,071.81

2013: RM1,029,767,352.60

2014: RM137,612,077.11

2015: RM19,495,822.53

2016: RM743,179.21

2017: RM400,174.47

-Mkini