The South African Revenue Service was out to destroy his life, super-rich businessman Dave King said on Tuesday.
King, who faces more than 300 charges including racketeering and money laundering, said Sars was using the charges as leverage to get as much money out of him as possible in a settlement for his alleged tax evasion.
Legal fees in the matter for both him and Sars have amounted to close R400-million, he said.
”They will destroy lives as a tax collection technique,” he told journalists in a two-and-a-half-hour presentation.
”We need a change at the top at Sars … What we’ve got at the top is an enforcement team. They are not tax officials. They are tough, tough, tough guys.”
King said Sars commissioner Pravin Gordhan had already overruled two agreements Sars officials made with King and a plea bargain with the Scorpions in which King had agreed to pay fines.
”He [Gordhan] really wanted to get to the big numbers.”
He said he suspected that Gordhan even fired one of the Sars officials who had negotiated an agreement with him. King said Gordhan had wanted to make an example out of him.
”There’s no doubt I presented a wonderful opportunity … he [Gordhan] was looking for high-profile situations.
”I’ve said some very unkind things about the commissioner … [and] he’s come straight at me. There’s no doubt there’s a level of personal
difference between the commissioner and me.
”I think, to some, extent, it has just got out of control,” said King, who has been the subject of an eight-year investigation.
King is in a dispute with Sars over the tax treatment of the profit on the sales of shares in a JSE listed company, Specialised Outsourcing, in the late 1990s and the income and benefits he received.
King said he was not sure how much Sars believed he owed them, but that it was ”probably R10-billion or R12-billion”. – Sapa