The review of the relevant dates, as carried out in paragraphs 457-464 of the defense's summaries, does not refer to the first assessment issued to the defendant on December 26, 2010, and it seems to me that this point in time is significant. Even if I had assumed that the sending of the "residency questionnaire" to the defendant in July 2009 left the defendant optimistic that this was a "mistake", and that the Tax Authority would soon retract it, the very fact that the first assessment was issued in December 2010, after examining and rejecting his claims, should have led to the conclusion that the tax proceedings are liable to "escalate", and may require the presentation of evidence and testimonies on the question of residency. This conclusion does not change even in light of the defense's testimonies regarding the negotiations with the Tax Authority, which continued until close to the beginning of the stage of presenting the evidence in the tax appeal. Negotiations, by their nature, can run aground, they can fail, certainly when it is not alleged that any element of the Tax Authority has instilled in the defendant and the professionals on his behalf a feeling that "your claims will be received immediately and the case will be closed."
I got the impression that the defendant is a talented and intelligent person, but it is clear that when a tax liability of such a significant sum is on the agenda, he will invest a great deal of thought in the question of how to prove his claim that he is a foreign resident, should and should he be required to do so.
- I therefore concluded that At the latest In December 2010, more than a year after the tax proceedings began, the defendant realized that proceedings might take place that might require the presentation of evidence and testimonies on the question of residency. This understanding had to lead to thinking about how his claim would be proven, and therefore an additional interest grew, at that point in time, into the relationship, since Ben-Eliezer was perceived by the defendant as someone who had been exposed to his personal and professional life in Russia and could support his claim about the center of his life. And if this is true of December 2010, then the defendant's understanding has been strengthened in light of the intensive proceedings that took place in 2011, which culminated in the same meeting that took place in September 2011, which Yerushalmi discussed in his testimony.
The Defendant's Interest in a Person Like Ben-Eliezer to Support His Arguments in the Tax Proceedings
- There is no dispute that Ben-Eliezer's figures in terms of public status, military record, and professional record throughout his many years in the Israeli Knesset and Israeli governments are impressive and extraordinary.
The combination of Ben-Eliezer's data and the fact that he was exposed, to one degree or another, to the defendant's personal and professional life in Russia, made Ben-Eliezer a potentially effective witness from the defendant's point of view.
- Based on the testimonies of the defendant's counsel in the tax proceeding, the defense argued that the criteria for selecting witnesses to testify in the tax appeal were defined by Adv. Sharon in meetings he held with the defendant. During those meetings, the names of the potential witnesses who would be able to substantiate the defendant's factual arguments about his life in Russia, the relationships he had, his work, etc., were clarified. It was further explained that the list of witnesses that was formulated was later reduced by his attorneys, in accordance with the position of the court that heard the tax appeal, and that Adv. Sharon was the one who chose Ben-Eliezer from the list.
Adv. Sharon described the meetings with the defendant and the formulation of the list of potential witnesses: