SARS has failed in its bid to get Bosasa corruption-accused Angelo Agrizzi to repatriate his foreign assets in Italy to pay the taxman more than R174m he allegedly owes, reports News24.

The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) yesterday dismissed SARS' application in terms of the Tax Administration Act (TAA) to have Agrizzi hand over his assets in Italy, which includes property, luxury vehicles and money held in two bank accounts.

The court also ruled in favour of Agrizzi's counter-application to review SARS' decision to refuse his application for suspension of payment of his assessed tax liability.

The matter finds its genesis in the evidence led before the State Capture Commission, where Agrizzi testified about Bosasa's dodgy dealings with the government.

Agrizzi was the chief operation officer at the company at the time. Judge Basson said that as a result of the evidence, SARS said it had become aware of a large scheme of fraud, money laundering, racketeering and tax evasion involving Bosasa. Following income tax assessments from 2006 to 2019, SARS assessed that Agrizzi did not declare more than R190m in taxable income.

After assessing Agrizzi's objections, some of which were ‘partially allowed’, SARS reduced the amount owed from R230m to R174m. 

SARS sought an order that assets be converted to cash and the funds be repatriated, whereafter the money be deposited into the trust account of SARS' attorney. 

In the court application, Agrizzi raised three arguments against the repatriation application.

It was argued that there was no tax debt; the SARS official who brought the application was not authorised to do so as he was not a senior; the order sought by SARS was legally impermissible as it would infringe on his bail conditions.

The court found in favour of SARS on the first two objections but found in favour of Agrizzi on the third.

Agrizzi was arrested and released on bail in October 2020. His bail was equal to the value of his fixed property in Italy. As part of his bail conditions, Agrizzi was required to hand over the original title deed of the property and the NPA was also furnished with a signed guarantee secured by the property. 

The court found the order was illegally impossible as it would result in a variation of the bail condition and could even result in Agrizzi's arrest as the bail conditions require him to cede the Italy property as security for the state.

Basson also pointed out that the court could not consider what the NPA was willing to do in terms of changing the bail conditions as SARS didn’t cite the prosecuting body as a respondent, despite their direct interest in the matter, reports News24.

In Agrizzi's bid to review SARS' refusal to grant him a payment suspension pending the finalisation of objections or appeals to their assessments, the court found that the taxman lacked a rational connection to the TAA to ensure prompt payment.

The court ruled that the matter be remitted back to SARS for reconsideration of the suspension application by Agrizzi.

Full News24 report