Businessman and his company sentenced for tax fraud

Businessman and his company sentenced for tax fraud

A Bloemfontein businessman and his company were handed suspended sentences after they were found guilty on eight counts of failure to submit Income Tax Returns and four counts of failure to submit Personal Tax Returns. Magistrate Mathews sentenced Abel Kgotso Manyeki (41) and his company, ORI Group PTY Ltd for failing to submit Income Tax Returns as well as failure to submit Personal Income Tax Returns (ITR12). Manyike pleaded guilty to all the charges against him and his company.

In a plea that was read by his lawyer, Manyike, who is also an accused in the Free State asbestos case, stated that he is guilty of the offence of contravening the provisions of section 234 (d), as well as paragraph 142 of schedule 1 of the Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011, which is failure to submit Income Tax Returns. He pleaded guilty to all eight counts of failure to submit Income Tax Returns.

He also pleaded guilty to four counts of failure to submit Personal Income Tax Returns because he failed to file or submit returns for ORI Group whereas he knew that he was supposed to file the returns with SARS for purposes of tax calculations. He was the director of the Ori Group.

Manyike further pleaded guilty to a charge of failure to register a company as a VAT vendor. He admitted that on 08 July 2014, he failed to register ORI Group as a VAT vendor even though he was aware that the taxable supplies of the company will exceed the threshold of the taxable amount of R1 million.

Ori Group was sentenced to a fine of R30 000 after the magistrate took all the eight counts of non-filing of the company tax returns together for purposes of sentencing. Manyike was sentenced to a fine of R15 000 or two years imprisonment after the court took all the four counts of non-filing of the personal income tax together for purposes of sentencing.

Manyike was further sentenced to R5 000 or one-year imprisonment for failing to register the company for VAT. The sentence was wholly suspended on condition that he is not found guilty of contravening the Tax Administration Act.

Magistrate Mathews further ordered Manyike to pay all the outstanding tax returns for company and personal tax return on or before 21 July 2024.

Issued by:

Phaladi Shuping

Regional Spokesperson

Free State Division