Kieswetter turns up heat on Zuma tax records issue
SARS Commissioner Edward Kieswetter has hit back at Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s claims that former President Jacob Zuma is supporting her demands for access to his tax records.
According to a Business Day report by legal writer Karyn Maughan, he said there is no proof that the tweets she relies on as evidence of this assertion were even authored by Zuma himself.
Kieswetter also questioned why she has not chosen to approach Zuma for consent. Mkhwebane is instead persisting with her efforts to subpoena Zuma's tax records from SARS. His assertions, made in an affidavit filed at the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria), have placed Zuma at the centre of SARS’ increasingly ugly battle with Mkhwebane over his tax returns.
Kieswetter and SARS are challenging an October 2019 subpoena issued against him by Mkhwebane, in which she seeks to compel him to give her Zuma’s tax information as part of her investigation into allegations that the former President received a R1m a month salary from Royal Security in the first few months of his term as President.
The matter will be in court on 6 March when Kieswetter will seek an order to stop Mkhwebane using subpoena powers to compel SARS to hand over Zuma’s confidential tax information.
He also wants the court to order that SARS officials are permitted to withhold taxpayer information, specifically, ‘any information provided by a taxpayer or obtained by SARS in respect of the taxpayer, including biometric information’ from the Public Protector.
The Business Day report points out that if Zuma enters the fray, and confirms the content of tweets in which he appears to give consent to the release of his tax records, he risks the public disclosure of his private tax matters – some of which also form part of the corruption charges he now faces.
Kieswetter maintains that independent legal advice obtained by the revenue service and the Public Protector’s Office made it clear that, if Mkhwebane wanted to access Zuma’s tax records legally, she would either need to apply for them in court or ask Zuma for them directly.
‘The Public Protector has adopted neither of these approaches,’ Kieswetter states in the affidavit.
‘She is significantly unable to explain why she did not do so.’
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.
