Tax practitioner guilty on 121 counts of fraud
A Mitchells Plain tax practitioner has been found guilty of more than 100 fraud charges after he submitted false income tax returns for 28 taxpayers, says a Cape Argus report. John Bantam was convicted of 121 counts of fraud by the Bellville Regional Court.
According to the charge sheet, Bantam submitted income tax returns where he claimed the taxpayers had businesses and those businesses had losses to claim from SARS. The tax return claims resulted in tax refunds of R690 455.75 to the 28 taxpayers. For his work Bantam received a 10% fee on each refund the taxpayers received, paid to his wife’s account.
The tax returns date back to 2003 and were submitted from the year 2009 via eFiling. When SARS requested supporting documents for the business losses, the taxpayers contacted the accused, who later generated false supporting documents justifying the businesses losses and forwarded them to SARS.
The taxpayers said they never had businesses and were salaried employees, therefore they never incurred business losses. They testified that the first time they heard about the business loss claims was when they were contacted by SARS. Bantam chose not to testify and did not call any defence witnesses.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
