By Adama Makasuba
Supreme Court today upheld the adverse findings a tax evasion commission in 2012 against lawyer Ousainou Darboe.
The commission established by former president Yahya Jammeh was said to have had found Mr Darboe liable of tax evasion amounting to one million nine hundred and eighty-one thousand two hundred and ninety-six dalais [D1,981,296.52].
Mr Darboe however took the case to the top court of the country to challenge the findings of the commission upheld by a lower court.
Presiding over ruling on Tuesday, justice MM Sey said pursuant to paragraph 3 of the Legal Notice establishing the Commission and section 200 of the Constitution, the Commission has the power to review taxes as she dismissed Darboe’s challenge on the jurisdiction of the Commission to review taxes.
“The Commission has the power to assess and reassess the appellant’s (Darboe’s) tax liabilities,” justice Sey judged, citing section 200 of the Constitution and Legal Notice 27 of 2011 of giving the sources of the Commission’s power to assess and reassess tax liabilities are.
“The powers to assess and reassess is both for the Commission of Inquiry and the Commissioner General,” she held.
She added: “The Legal Notice conferred the Commission the power to reassess the tax liability of the appellant.”
However, in his appeal before the Supreme Court, Mr Darboe contended that the Commission does not have the power to review his tax; that is the power to assess is only with the Commissioner General of GRA .He said he was not confronted with the adverse findings of the Commission and there it violated the Constitution. He said the judgment of the Court of Appeal is against the weight of the evidence adduced.
Darboe argued that the Commission lacks the mandate to reassess his tax and therefore, the action was contrary to law because the Commission was not conferred with such powers. He relied on Section 23 (1) of the National Sales Act, Sections 64 and 84 (1) and (2) of the Income Tax Act to support his challenge on the powers of the Commission to reassess taxes. He contended that there was no evidence of fraud against him adding that the Court of Appeal failed to properly assess the documentary evidence before it. Darboe challenged the Commission’s finding saying it is not supported by evidence.
Darboe began said he was called to the bar in 1973 and he established his law firm in 1980. He told the Court he was the lawyer to several companies including GAMTEL, SSHFC, GPTC, Gambia Airways and the Continental Bank but when he began, he ventured in politics in 1996, he lost his customers and some of them were not forthcoming.
