Businessman's 404 fraudulent tax claims gets him nine years in jail

A businessman who submitted more than 400 fraudulent tax returns to revenue service Sars has been sentenced to an effective nine years' imprisonment.

Recado Williams Davids, 47, from the Free State, was sentenced by the Welkom regional court on Friday after pleading guilty to 404 fraud charges.  

"The fraud, committed between 2007 and 2015, was enabled through the use of 12 legal entities, including their representatives and members," said Sars spokesperson Sandile Memela.  

Davids pleaded guilty in terms of a plea agreement with the state. 

"The counts were taken together for purposes of sentencing. He was sentenced to 15  years' imprisonment, of which six years is conditionally suspended. Thus an effective imprisonment of nine years was handed down," said Memela.   

In a separate matter, a businessman from Kimberly in the Northern Cape was handed a five-year suspended sentence on 32 counts of tax fraud.

Joseph Thabo Modupe was sentenced by the Kimberly magistrate's court.

The chair of the Droogfontein Community Property Association and owner of a taxi business, he committed tax fraud through two businesses.  

Following a plea agreement with the state, he was fined R50,000 and ordered to pay back to Sars the money he had fraudulently obtained.

"In a plea agreement, he acknowledged that he had defrauded Sars of approximately R550,000 by under-declaring income and submitting false input claims. The two businesses also failed to submit 30 VAT returns between 2013 and 2017," added Memela.

Modupe's charges included forgery and eight counts of uttering for providing false invoices to Sars in support of tax claimed, and for failure to submit a personal income tax return for the 2014 tax year.

Memela said he had already repaid Sars a significant amount and the remainder would be paid as instructed by court order.