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The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has won a Sh1.4 billion tax evasion claim suit against a Pakistani rice company.
This emerged after Tax Appeals Tribunal dismissed an appeal filed by Jhulay LAL Commodities Ltd that contested KRA’s demand for the money.
The company filed for an appeal after a Mombasa Magistrate High Court was in favour of KRA arguing that the authority’s assessment was excessive.
“KRA successfully argued that it made the assessment after an investigation revealed several irregularities including unexplained bank deposits and that the sales of the rice exceeded the amounts imported,” said the tribunal.
The company is said to have dodged taxes for four years.
In February last year, the authority prosecuted two Pakistan businessmen, Rahim Qasim and Rameez Gulzar Ali of having imported rice worth sh. 1.68 billion and sold it all but failed to declare and remit income tax from the business to KRA.
They also faced two other counts of defaulting to pay sh. 434,930/= to KRA arising from business undertakings amounting to sh 1.4million in 2017, and Kshs 522 million from business undertakings amounting to sh. 1.7 billion in 2018.
They denied all the three charges.
Prosecutors said the crimes had been committed between January 2015 and December 2018, and that cash sales from the businesses had been banked in the company’s bank accounts at Barclays, Gulf African, Equity and Diamond Trust Banks.
Their arrests followed lengthy investigations by KRA’s Investigation and Enforcement Department on the tax fraud.
Chief magistrate Edna Nyaloti released the suspects on a bond of sh. 20 Million and a Kenyan surety of the same amount each, and ordered their passports to be held by the court.
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