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Fired taxman makes light of false info on tax return
THE former head of the Oshakati office of the Directorate of Inland Revenue admitted in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday that he filled in false information on a tax return of a relative of his and also signed it in the relative’s name – but defended this as a mere “human error”.
Hans Haraseb, who was dismissed from his position as a Deputy Director in the Ministry of Finance in late 2006, made this admission while giving evidence before Judge Sylvester Mainga on a defamation claim in which he wants freelance journalist John Grobler, The Namibian’s Editor, Gwen Lister, and the company that owns the newspaper, The Free Press of Namibia, to pay him N$750 000.
Haraseb is claiming that six articles published in The Namibian between March 1 2005 and June 16 2006 contained statements that were defamatory of him. These statements, he claims, depicted him as being, amongst other things, corrupt, without moral fibre, guilty of criminal conduct as a civil servant, not a law-abiding citizen, and also dishonest.
The allegedly offensive articles dealt with the investigation of tax evasion in the north of Namibia – which fell under the Oshakati office of the Directorate of Inland Revenue – and alleged irregularities that were detected in the operations of the Oshakati Inland Revenue office.
Haraseb was the head of the office at the time, but had been suspended from his post when the articles appeared in print. He was later dismissed from the Public Service of Namibia after he was found guilty on several charges of misconduct in a disciplinary hearing that he did not attend.
Haraseb told the Judge on Tuesday that his dismissal was unfair and a witch-hunt against him, and that he was challenging it in the District Labour Court.
One of the articles that he is suing about was a report about the arrest of Tsumeb businessman Kallie Grünschloss, the owner of the Family Choice sugar packaging plant at the Oshikoto Region town, on charges of massive tax fraud and tax evasion at the end of February 2005, and Grünschloss’s subsequent release on bail of N$1 million.
Testifying under cross-examination from senior counsel Dave Smuts yesterday, Haraseb told the court that “Kallie or those other big taxpayers” were not dealt with by the Oshakati Receiver of Revenue, but by the Windhoek office.
Although he referred to Grünschloss under the latter’s first name, he was not on friendly terms with him, Haraseb told the court. He said he was using Grünschloss’s first name because he had seen that name in newspaper reports.
Haraseb acknowledged that Grünschloss had paid money into his bank account. He said that was a payment of N$20 000, which was for a bulldozer that he had sold to Grünschloss.
He insisted that Grünschloss’s tax file was kept at the Windhoek office of the Directorate of Inland Revenue, with the result that his office at Oshakati could never carry out an audit of the file, as had been recommended by the Office of the Auditor General in 2004.
Haraseb denied that Grünschloss’s tax file was found in his office after he had been suspended. Smuts told him that a witness who took part in a forensic audit at the Oshakati office after his suspension would still tell the court that the file had indeed been found in his office.
If that was so, then the file had been planted in his office in order to incriminate him, Haraseb indicated on that score.
Smuts also told Haraseb that, according to the Ministry of Finance, tax collections in the north of Namibia improved substantially after Haraseb had been suspended and removed from his post. Haraseb refused to agree with that.
While Haraseb denied having worked with Grünschloss’s tax file while he was in his post, he admitted that he acted as a tax advisor for his cousin, George Gariseb, who has denied that Haraseb bought a farm under his name in 2002.
Haraseb acknowledged that Gariseb’s tax returns for the 2002 and 2003 tax years were filed with the Oshakati Inland Revenue office, where Haraseb was in charge at the time. He also confirmed that he filled in Gariseb’s residential address on his tax return for 2003, and that he put a residential address at Oshakati which was not the address where Gariseb was living at the time on the form. As a result, Haraseb agreed, a false address had been filled in on the tax return.
To add to that, Haraseb signed Gariseb’s tax return – not in his own name or on Gariseb’s behalf, but signing Gariseb’s name in the part of the tax return where a tax payer is required to declare that all the information in the tax return is true and correct.
It was a “human error” to have done that, but it did not really matter because Gariseb in any event was not assessed as having to pay any taxes that year, Haraseb told the court. He indicated that further documentation on Gariseb’s income for the year still had to be received before his tax liabilities could be assessed, so in his view until that was done the tax return on which the false signature and information appeared was not a valid tax return.
Haraseb is set to face further cross-examination when the case returns to court. With an insufficient three days set aside for the trial this week, it had to be postponed yesterday afternoon to a date that must still be arranged with the court’s Registrar.
Smuts is being instructed by lawyer Mike Böttger, of the law firm LorentzAngula Inc.
Haraseb is represented by Phillip Barnard, instructed by Johanna Nghishekwa of Metcalfe Legal Practitioners.
werner@namibian.com.na
