Nabeel Hussain Qureahi and Salman Ahmed Rizvi have been charged with four counts of tax evasion. The two are accused of evading taxation through declaring nil returns and under-declaring incomes which had been derived from the sale of the motor vehicles.
The two were arrested pursuant to lengthy investigations that were carried out by its KRA investigation and enforcement department on suspected tax fraud schemes.
The accused own Ameen Motors Limited. It is said that between January 2013 and December 2018, they failed to pay taxes amounting to Ksh. 127.6 million.
In the plea taking mention before Mombasa Chief Magistrate Ednah Nyaloti, the two accused denied the charges and were released each on a Ksh. 20 million bond with surety of the same amount. Being Pakistani nationals they were also ordered to deposit their passports in court.
The KRA prosecutors did not oppose the bond. However, they asked the court to raise it as it was not proportionate to the amount of tax which they had evaded.
Records from the KRA showed that the company had imported 599 units of Motor vehicles worth Ksh 217 million between January 2013 and December 2018. The two sold the units for Ksh 658 million but only declared Ksh 33 million.
In the breakdown of the total tax evaded, the prosecutors stated that the accused jointly with others not in court unlawfully made incorrect statements in the company’s income tax returns for various years.
In 2014, incorrect tax returns reduced their corporate tax liability by Ksh 32.1 million. The KRA says that these suspects and their company committed the offence on diverse dates between August 1, 2014 and January 31, 2015.
In another count, between August 1, 2015 and January 31, 2016 the suspects are accused of unlawfully making an incorrect tax statements thus reducing the company’s tax liability by Ksh 43.7 million.
Finally in various dates between August 1, 2016 and January 31, 2017, the suspects are accused of fraudulently making an incorrect statement thus reducing the company’s tax liability by Ksh 32.2 million.
Additionally, the accused are further charged with denying the KRA 19.6 million in revenue as a result of forming and abandoning companies whenever they accrued tax liability.
In his mitigation, Salaman Ahmed Rizvi stated that he was helpless as he was only 23 years old and had been residing in Kenya for less than a year. He stated that the true company owners were in Japan.
Nabeel Hussain Qureshi, however, fainted and had to be helped by a court clerk and the orderlies.
The case is scheduled for a mention on December 17, 2019.
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