Jacaranda Hotel directors to be charged with defaulting over Sh100 million tax

By
Reporter
-
0

Six Jacaranda hotel directors are expected to be charged with deliberately defaulting in the obligation to remit value added tax by the due date.

Alfred Kigera Karume,Kungu Gatabaki ,Jane Grace Njoki Njenga,James Raymond Njenga,Mary Wambui M’Mkindia,James Kinondo Ngata and Jacaranda Hospital are accused of defaulting to remit the tax amount to Sh 43,581,360.2 to the commissioner domestic taxes by the due date.

The accused persons are alleged to have committed the offense on diverse dates between 20th April and 20th December 2016.

On the second count ,the directors were charged with defaulting to remit tax amounting to Sh 44,446,836.4.They are further said to have defaulted to remit Sh 32,816,825.9 and Sh32,514,159 on the same dates.

However the accused persons did not plead to the charges since they didn’t appear in court for plea taking. Senior Principal Magistrate Martha Mutuku issued sermons to all the accused persons.

The hotel which is owned by former Minister Njenga Karume, moved to the High Court in February arguing that KRA had declined its offer to offset the tax arrears in installments.
KRA had sent auctioneers to recover the amount on their behalf in January in a bid to enforce the demand.

The hotel, based in Westlands Nairobi, had paid Sh15 million out of Sh 95 Million and had floated a proposal to pay the balance in 12 to 18 monthly installments.

However, KRA sent a demand that it should offset Sh50 million before 1st February and clear the balance in three months.
The petitioners claimed that in September 2016, the hotel was barred from charging or disposing any of its assets which is still pending before court. As the result they have procured an undertaking from Njenga karume trust fund, a shareholder of jacaranda to loan it funds to settle the monthly installments as per the proposal with KRA.
The hotelier says that it wants to settle the arrears but due to its current position they can’t raise to amount of money demanded by KRA within the time frame.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR