Somizi’s luxury items go under the hammer
An alleged unpaid Sars bill that has been dogging him since last year has seen him losing 15 Louis Vuitton bags, among other things.
Somizi Mhlongo. Picture Instagram
Reports have surfaced that SA Idols star Somizi Mhlongo has had a rather tough time lately.
According to a story in the Sunday Sun, the celebrity, reality TV star and choreographer has been paid a visit by repo men who seized several of his movable assets. They were later auctioned off.
Among the items that went under the hammer were 15 Louis Vuitton bags, a crocodile skin couch, 83 pairs of shades, and a fridge, according to the report.
The paper alleges the items were seized because the South African Revenue Service (Sars) says the reality TV star owes it R2.5 million.
Last year it was reported that he apparently came to the taxman’s attention in 2014 “when he flaunted his assets on social media platforms and TV”.
The celeb was at the time promoting his book. He told the media that Sars’ “timing sucks”, although he did not deny his tax problems.
Sars is not allowed to reveal taxpayers’ information, so they did not comment on the matter.
Reportedly, Somizi was contacted on a number of occasions by tax authorities who “pleaded with him to make a full disclosure of his income and to submit all his personal tax returns”.
They reportedly had to go to court and obtained a judgment against him in the High Court in Johannesburg.
Taking into account interest, the amount he owed ballooned to R2.5 million. Sars was also likely to do an audit of his bank statements going back five years.
Somizi last year boasted about buying a R2 million BMW i8 and that he was “shopping around” for a R6 million house.
READ MORE: Somizi in hijacking hullabaloo
It seems the celebrity choreographer just can’t catch a break.
In a separate matter, he was also reported to have lodged two complaints with the SA Human Rights Commission over offensive social media posts.
The one relates to a woman named Lia Meyer who called him a “homosexual k*****tjie” on Twitter.
She denied tweeting the slur, saying her account had been hacked.
The other relates to a ‘comedian’, Careless D, who posted an ‘open letter’ to Somizi and his friends in the form of a video that accused some gay men of dressing like clowns and advised them to instead dress conservatively so they would be more likely to convince straight men to “experiment” by sleeping with them.
The so-called comedian says the entire video was meant in jest and had mistakenly been taken seriously.
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