Therefore, it is not possible to deduce from the accounting report the conclusion to which the Respondent tried to direct the Committee in his arguments, as appeared in paragraphs 33 and 34 of Mr. Barak's affidavit on behalf of the Respondent.
The summary of CPA Marco's testimony is found in a question asked by the court and a clear answer (page 22 of the transcript, lines 4-12):
"The Honorable Judge: I will assume that the opinion is of course late for the filing of the appeal and for the arguments that were made in the framework of the request to amend the assessment in real estate taxation, sir I am of the opinion but that if they had come to you and presented the data as they are presented in the framework of this appeal about the limitations that "Ashdar" claims exist on it as part of the contractual framework with which it contracted following the tender, the result according to the approach in the opinion would still be that the accounting report is correct and relevant to this state of affairs?
- Yes. It is still relevant and for our purposes here regarding the taxation issue it is not relevant to the decision here and would not have changed the decision even if the court had ruled otherwise, this asset is still listed as stock in the books."
- Therefore, the respondent's argument that it seeks to attribute significance to the accounting report for the purposes of establishing its position in the present appeals on the question of whether or not the appellant acquired a "right in real estate" in the sense of the Real Estate Taxation Law. As it emerges from the opinion of CPA Marco and his testimony before us, which is acceptable to me and which I have found no basis for not accepting it, the manner of accounting reporting was no different, whether it was a "right in real estate" in the sense Real Estate Taxation Law and whether it is not a "right in real estate" according to the law, and therefore the accounting reporting has no effect or impact on the legal and taxation interpretation required in the appeals in this case.
- The Respondent also submitted an affidavit on behalf of Mr. Oren Yaakov, Deputy Director of the Marketing and Tenders Division at the ILA. In significant parts of Mr. Yaakov's affidavit, he claimed that "There is no material difference between the terms of this tender ["Buyer's Price" – A.W.] to the conditions set out in other tenders published by the ILA to developers and/or contractors for the purchase of lease rights in the land, in respect of which there is no claim that the ILA sells any right to the purchasers directly (and in general), and it is clear that this is not the case." This testimony is intended to convince us that the contractual array of "Buyer's Price" tenders should not be interpreted differently as opposed to "regular" tenders conducted by the ILA.
However, I am not at all convinced that this testimony of Mr. Yaakov should be accepted for a number of reasons.
- The first reason lies in the fact that apart from general statements in Mr. Yaakov's affidavit regarding the lack of difference between "Buyer's Price" tenders and "regular" ILA tenders, no examples of "regular" tenders were attached, from which it was possible to learn about similarities As claimed in the terms of the tenders and the contractual system accompanying them.
As will be detailed below, the person who presented an example of a "regular" tender is actually the appellant (see Exhibit A/6), in order to contradict the general argument in Mr. Yaakov's affidavit.