Decision in a month’s time on Najib’s RM1.69 bil tax bill
(FMT) – A High Court judge said today he needed a month to decide on an application for a summary judgment against former premier Najib Najib for payment of RM1.69 billion in income tax.
“I will inform the parties a week before the date of the decision,” Justice Ahmad Bache said after hearing submissions on the application by the Inland Revenue Board (LHDN) for a summary judgment.
LHDN’s counsel Abu Tariq Jamaluddin had told the court that a notice of tax assessment, requiring payment to be made to the board, was applicable to all, including the former prime minister.
He said it was unfair to other taxpayers if Najib, who was named as the defendant in the suit, was exempted from doing so.
Tariq submitted that LHDN had issued the notice to Najib asking him to pay the amount. “However, there was no request from the defendant for an arrangement of the payment and therefore, we filed the suit to recover the money.
“If there is no payment, the suit will be filed. It applies to all taxpayers,” he said.
Tariq said the court should allow the application as provided for under Section 106(3) of the Income Tax Act 1967 (Act 53), which reads: “In any proceedings under this section, the court shall not entertain any plea that the amount of tax sought to be recovered is excessive, incorrectly assessed, under appeal or incorrectly increased.”
Najib’s counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah argued there were no special circumstances for the court to grant the application for summary judgment through Order 14 of the Rules of Court 2012.
“The plaintiff is depriving the court of looking at the merits of the case when they applied for summary judgment.
“They sued us, but we cannot fight the case (through a trial). Isn’t this an intrusion to the judiciary power that the court cannot do anything?” he asked, adding that Order 14 “is a draconian law and Section 106(3) raised a monster out of the law”.
Shafee also questioned why LHDN was in a hurry to seek summary judgment against his client, saying it amounted to being oppressive against Najib.
“If Your Honour allows the application, they can oppressively move to get the RM1.69 billion taxes against my client, whereas my client doesn’t owe even a single sen,“ he said.
The court had on Feb 28 dismissed Najib’s application for a stay of proceedings of LHDN’s suit seeking him to pay RM1.69 billion in income tax pending an appeal on the tax assessment to the board.
On Aug 8 last year, Najib filed an application for a stay of proceedings of the suit.
However, LHDN, in its supporting affidavit, said Najib still had to pay the total amount of RM1.69 billion even if he had filed an appeal against the tax assessment.
LHDN Monitoring Unit assistant director Hisyamuddin Mohd Hassan, in his supporting affidavit, said that according to Section 103 of the Income Tax Act 1967, all the assessed tax shall be due and payable on the day the notice of assessment is served, whether or not the person appeals against the assessment.
On June 25 last year, the government through LHDN filed the suit against Najib, seeking him to settle the unpaid tax with interest at 5% a year from the date of judgment, as well as costs and other relief deemed fit by the court.
