Nov 8 for court hearing of Najib's bid to stay RM1.69b tax suit

Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak’s application to stay the RM1.69 billion tax suit against him will be heard by the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Nov 8.

Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Ahmad Bache fixed this date after case management of the matter in his chambers this afternoon.

During the chamber proceedings, the judge also set the same date to hear the plaintiff government’s application for summary judgement against defendant Najib.

This was confirmed by Najib’s counsel Muhammad Farhan Muhammad Shafee when met after proceedings.

“The parties have filed documents as directed by the court in the previous case management.

“The court now has fixed the date for parties to file written submissions for both applications on Nov 11, 2019, with the hearing date (for both stay and summary judgment applications) also on Nov 11, 2019,” Farhan told journalists.

Najib was also represented by counsel Wee Yeong Kang.

The Inland Revenue Board’s (IRB) federal counsel Norhisham Ahmad, Mazlan Alias, and al-Hummidallah Idrus represented the government during today's chamber proceedings.

On Aug 16, the Kuala Lumpur High Court fixed Sept 6 for case management to fix the hearing date for Najib's application to stay the RM1.69 billion tax suit against him pending his reassessment appeal with IRB.

On Aug 8, Najib had filed the application to stay the proceedings pending his tax-reassessment appeal with IRB.

The former premier had claimed that he had a high chance of winning the appeal to have his taxes reassessed because donations allegedly formed a large portion of the funds from which the RM1.69 billion tax sum was calculated.

Incidentally, on Aug 8, the government through IRB had also filed their application for summary judgement against Najib in the tax suit.

Under Malaysia's civil law, summary judgement is a mode of disposing legal action without going for a full trial, in very clear cases where the defendant has no defence against the claim.

In the summary judgment application, the IRB contended that Najib must still pay RM1.69 billion in tax despite his ongoing reassessment appeal with the board.

The government through IRB initially filed the suit against Najib on June 25.

It sought over RM1.69 billion from the former premier, with an annual five percent interest rate beginning from the date of judgement, as well as costs and other relief deemed fit by the court.

In its statement of claim, the government said Najib had failed to pay his income taxes from 2011 to 2017 within the stipulated 30-day period after assessment notices were issued.

As such, the amount owed each year was increased by 10 percent.

It also said that Najib was given 60 days to pay the taxes, together with the 10 percent increase, but still failed to do so.

Following this, Najib was slapped with another five percent increase in the 10 percent hike, bringing the total amount of income tax due to RM1,692,872,924.83.

The final amount owed each year is as follows:

2011: RM134,180,247.10

2012: RM370,674,071.81

2013: RM1,029,767,352.60

2014: RM137,612,077.11

2015: RM19,495,822.53

2016: RM743,179.21

2017: RM400,174.47

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