Father, son in court for evading taxes worth Sh100 million

WAJIR, KENYA: A father and his son from Wajir County were Thursday charged in a Nyeri court with failure to pay taxes amounting to Sh100 million to Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).

Ahmed Muhumed Almi and Bishar Ahmed Muhumed appeared before Nyeri senior resident magistrate Harrison Adika where they denied 15 counts of evading taxes.

The duo was in the first seven-count charged that on diverse dates between January 20, 2015, and January 2016 being directors of a limited company and their limited liability company and jointly with others, not before court deliberately failed to pay Value-added taxes.

They further faced four other counts of knowingly making a statement, which affected the liability of taxes.

Almi and Muhumed, consequently faced an additional four other counts of failure to submit tax returns.
The two; however, through their lawyer George Gori denied the charges.

The lawyer told the court Almi was a senior citizen and does his business in the republic and therefore not flight risk.
“His son similarly does business within the republic and has no intention of running away,” Gori stated.

He requested to be supplied with witness statements and any documentary evidence the prosecution intended to rely on in the case.

Adika directed the prosecution to furnish the defence with a witness statement and all evidence intended to be used in court.

 He released the accused on a bond of Sh 1 million or an alternative cash bail of the same amount and a surety of similar amount.

The case will be mentioned on July 18 and a further mention on July 29 for fixing of hearing dates.