KUALA LUMPUR: Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's son, Datuk Mohd Nazifuddin, has lost his bid to postpone the Inland Revenue Board’s (IRB) suit to recover RM37.6 million in unpaid taxes from him from 2011 to 2017.
This was after High Court judge Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim dismissed Nazifuddin’s application for a stay of the proceedings.
The application was filed pending an appeal on the amount of additional tax assessments required to be paid by Nazifuddin.
His counsel, Muhammad Farhan Muhammad Shafee, said the judge meted the decision on grounds that there were no special circumstances to warrant a stay of the proceedings.
He said the court also fixed April 28 to hear IRB’s application for a summary judgement of its lawsuit.
“The court has refused the application (for a stay) on grounds that there were no special circumstances to warrant a stay of the proceedings right now,” he said after the matter came up in chambers today.
Asked if his client is going to appeal the decision, Farhan said he could do either that or wait for the outcome of the summary judgement before deciding on the next course of action.
On July 24, last year, the government had, through IRB, filed the writ of summons claiming that Nazifuddin still had unpaid taxes for the assessment years of 2011 to 2017 as stated in a notice dated March 15, 2019.
According to the notice, the tax arrears were RM1,541,850.83, RM5,718,486.42, RM5,437,086.08, RM3,775,133.23, RM1,796,494.18, RM2,271,812.79 and RM12,052,046.26 from the years 2011 to 2017, respectively.
The government claimed that Nazifuddin's failure to pay the tax arrears, which should have been done within 30 days from the date of the assessment notice, caused a 10 per cent additional payment.
This is in line with Section 103 of the Income Tax Act 1967.
The government also contended that as Nazifuddin, 37, had still failed to settle the amount within 60 days in accordance with the Act, another compounded five per cent increase was imposed and added to the renewed sum.
The government said it had the right to recoup the income tax that was still owed along with the additional increases which the defendant had yet to pay.
Among others, the government is seeking a sum of RM37,644,810.73 with interest of five per cent per annum from the day of judgement until the sum is fulfilled, costs, and other relief deemed fit by the court.
Last Friday, a High Court meted a similar decision in Najib’s application to stay his RM1.69 billion tax suit.
Apart from failing to prove any special circumstances for the stay, judge Datuk Ahmad Bache also held that if a stay was granted, it would give a great impact to the tax recovery process.