Thoshan Panday hit with more than 20 tax fraud charges

Durban businessman Thoshan Panday will remain behind bars after his arrest on tax fraud charges until his next court appearance.

Panday appeared in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Thursday.

The 51-year-old  is facing 27 counts of fraud, alternatively contraventions of tax legislation which outlaw false returns in respect of VAT and annual income tax.

The matter was postponed to 9 September for a bail application.

Arrest

National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Henry Mamothame said the state intends to oppose the bail.

Before his arrest, Panday was charged together with eight others, including former KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Mmamonnye Ngobeni, with racketeering, fraud and corruption. This matter is ongoing.

“The state alleges that Panday was effectively in control of several entities which had received payments from the South African Police Services (Saps) in an amount of approximately R47 million owing to a corrupt relationship with members of the Supply Chain Management Division of the Saps,” Mamothame said

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“These payments were allegedly made in respect of services rendered to the Saps preceding and during the Soccer World Cup in 2010.”

Tax fraud

Mamothame said Panday now faces tax fraud charges as a result of the submission of tax returns in respect of the entities that he had controlled which allegedly received payments from the SAPS during the 2010 and 2011 tax years.

“After the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC) had extended its investigations into the tax compliance of the entities controlled by Panday, tax investigations conducted by Sars revealed that declarations made in the tax returns were false.”

Mamothame added that it is alleged that Sars had suffered prejudice in the amount of approximately R 7.3 million as a result of these false tax declarations.

“To give effect to a whole-of-government approach by addressing financial crimes, including tax crime, cooperatively, Sars and the IDAC are collaborating to enhance voluntary tax compliance by making non-compliance hard and costly,” Mamothame said.

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