Defendant 4's arguments regarding the indictment 16
- The defense claims that the prosecution made a mistake in its treatment of the defendant on four offenses in violation of the VAT Law. This is because the accuser did not prove that defendant 4 filed periodic tax appeal reports on behalf of OPCI and committed the offenses attributed to him in the 16th indictment. No evidence was presented by the tax authorities that periodic tax appeal reports, which are relevant to charges 2, 4, 5 and 7, were indeed submitted to the tax appeal authorities and that they included the invoices detailed in the 16th indictment. The reports presented by the accuser relate to various companies whose names came up during the trial, but no report relating to OPCI was presented. It was further argued that defendant 4 is not obligated to report to the tax authorities in respect of his transactions, but that if there is any liability, it relates to OPCI, which is not one of the defendants in this case.
Defendant 4 is not a "tax-liable", "dealer" or "licensed dealer", as defined in section 1 of the VAT Law, and therefore is not obligated to make any report to the tax authorities, and no offense can be attributed to him. He is also not obligated to maintain books or records and is not obligated to submit a periodic report – duties that apply to those who are defined as "taxable". Adv. Meirovich, counsel for defendant 4, is of the opinion that the prosecution refrained from accusing OPCI because it mistakenly believed that it was a shell company, as was done with most of the companies used by defendant 1. After it became clear that this assumption was wrong, the prosecution refrained from requesting an amendment to the indictment, by adding the name of the company as a defendant in this case.
It was further argued that the prosecution did not prove the status of defendant 4 as an active manager in the company, in accordance with section 119 of the VAT Law. In order for any blame to be attributed to an active manager of the company, the company itself must be blamed with him, and the accuser did not do so in this case. Moreover, the accuser failed in her attempt to prove that defendant 4 served as an active manager of OPCI, as defined in law and case law. Therefore, it is requested that the defendant be acquitted of all the offenses attributed to him in the 16th indictment.