Therefore, the very fact that the appellant enacted her rights in accordance with the "Buyer's Price" tenders, which is the subject of the appeals to the banks that gave her financing for the purpose of the construction project of the "Buyer's Price" apartments, does not, in itself, attest to the acquisition of a "right in real estate" within the meaning of the law. The banks that provided the financing to the appellant presumably reviewed the building agreement, the lease agreement and the appendix to the special conditions, and found that the rights granted to it under this set of agreements justified their granting of financing.
The appellant's arguments in the present appeals that this contractual array did not grant her a "right to the land" in the sense of Real Estate Taxation Law and the fact that it is not subject to purchase tax for this reason does not undermine the basis of the financing agreements with the banks or create a claim by anyone of a "misrepresentation" against the banks providing financing. In any case, it is clear that the discretion of the banks in granting financing has nothing to do with the question of whether a "right in real estate" was acquired in the sense of Real Estate Taxation Law, or not.
- As to the argument raised by the respondent, in the framework of paragraphs 33-34 of Mr. Barak's affidavit, that in the appellant's financial statements she explicitly declared the purchase of a lease right in the "Buyer's Price" tenders and that she classified the "Buyer's Price" projects as a property, a stock of buildings for sale, and therefore testified about herself that this was a matter of purchasing a property and not providing a service, I am of the opinion that this claim was not proven at all by the respondent in the framework of bringing the evidence before us. It was even contradicted by the testimony of the expert on behalf of the appellant, CPA Shmuel Marko. Moreover, this argument does not change the conclusion that I reached after analyzing the contractual array as a whole, as stated above, that the appellant cannot be regarded as having acquired a "right in the land" in the sense Real Estate Taxation Law As part of the "Buyer's Price" tenders.
- The respondent relied in his aforementioned argument on what was stated in the affidavit of Mr. Barak, who, as clarified above, is not an accountant and is not an expert in the field of accounting rules. Mr. Barak referred to Explanation 8 of the Appellant's Report for 2020 (Appendix 16 to Mr. Barak's affidavit) to the heading "Inventory of Buildings for Sale" and concluded from this that the Appellant had declared the purchase of a property. In addition, Mr. Barak referred to the chapter dealing with the "description of the corporation's business" in the 2020 financial report (Appendix 17 to Mr. Barak's affidavit), and argued that the appellant described its construction and development businesses, inter alia, in "Buyer's Price" projects as those that included the acquisition of rights in real estate. Mr. Barak did not cope, and could not deal with the opinion of CPA Marco, in the absence of expertise in the field, but still saw fit to hold on to what was stated in the appellant's financial report as a reference to substantiate the respondent's position. I am of the opinion that after the opinion of CPA Marco was submitted, if the respondent wanted to continue to adhere to the meaning that he asked the Appeals Committee to attribute to the manner of accounting registration, he should have presented a counter-expert opinion, which he did not do.
Mr. Barak's cross-examination on this matter strengthened the conclusion that there is no basis for the position presented by him with regard to the significance of the accounting record.