Ever since Al Capone’s conviction, the great truism of gangsterism is that you can escape the police, the press and the public, but what gets you in the end is the taxman. I have always wondered whether this is true, and if so why? It’s worth recalling a couple of things about the Al Capone case which have been lost in the mists of time.
The pictures of the killing were so brutal and so grotesque that the US national government was called in. The tax case eventually brought against Capone was extremely weak and was largely based on Capone’s admissions after he tried to get his tax affairs in order. The biggest and most ambitious project so far at SARS came to light recently when the revenue service quietly lodged two damages claims in December in the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Pretoria against Sasfin Bank, one for R1.97-billion, involving 18 named companies, and another for R2.9-billion, involvingThis is an enormous claim, and legally speaking, it is potentially very significant. Despite SARS’ superpowers, it is being brought as a civil case.