High Court sets Sept 6 to hear Najib’s bid to stay RM1.69b tax suit

The Kuala Lumpur High Court today fixed Sept 6 to hear Najib Abdul Razak's application to stay the RM1.69 billion tax suit against him pending his reassessment appeal with the Inland Revenue Board (IRB).

Judge Ahmad Bache also set that same date to hear the government's application for summary judgement against the former prime minister to recover the RM1.69 billion in alleged computed tax owed.

Najib's counsel Muhammad Farhan Muhammad Shafee confirmed the outcome of case management in Ahmad's chambers this afternoon.

“Today is case management of our (Najib’s legal team) application for stay (of the tax suit) and the IRB’s application for summary judgement.

“The case management is to manage the filing of affidavits (of both parties). We have until Sept 6 to file the affidavits.

“Sept 6 is the date set for hearing both the stay application and summary judgment,” Farhan told the media after the chamber proceedings.

A five-person legal team who appeared for IRB today declined to speak to members of the media as they left the court.

On Aug 8, Najib had filed the application to stay the proceedings pending his tax-reassessment appeal with IRB.

The former premier had claimed that he had a high chance of winning the appeal to have his taxes reassessed because donations allegedly formed a large portion of the funds from which the RM1.69 billion tax sum was calculated.

Incidentally, on Aug 8, the government through IRB had also filed their application for summary judgment against Najib in the tax suit.

Under Malaysia's civil law, summary judgment is a mode of disposing of legal action without going for a full trial, in very clear cases where the defendant has no defence against the claim.

In the summary judgment application, IRB contended that Najib must still pay RM1.69 billion in tax despite his ongoing reassessment appeal with the board.

The government through IRB initially filed the suit against Najib on June 25.

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 cost and other relief deemed fit by the court.

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

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

It also said that Najib was given 60 days to pay the taxes, together with the 10 percent increase, but still 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 is 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