Main Inquiry
- CPA Menachem Dotan testified that the defendant approached him in 2014 regarding a house he wanted to rent. The defendants wanted to operate a property for the purpose of tourism, and he advised them to do so through an active company they owned. The defendants did this for several months and did not continue beyond that (pp. 651-652).
The witness knew about the business activity from invoices. There were no further indications (p. 652). The defendants told him in retrospect that the activity of the motel had ceased because they had given the house to the association and to family members who lived there, following their son's illness (p. 652). To the best of his knowledge, the property was not rented, and it was not brought to his attention that there was income from the property (p. 654).
Cross-examination
- The witness rejected the defense's argument that the defendants had given him additional information about which he had told them that he did not need to report (pp. 658-659). As he said: "If I am given information expressed in the reports, because they did not give me information, it is not expressed" (p. 659). He also rejected the claim that he told the defendants that they should report only their profit (p. 659). In 2016, there were no invoices anymore (p. 659).
- The witness was referred to the list of rents prepared by the defendant (P/6, Appendix H, p. 236) and to the fact that according to the list, units in the motel were rented during 2016, in exchange for payment. This is while according to the report submitted by the witness for 2016 for the defendants, there was no rental income that year. The witness explained that he did not know about the rental, and rejected the claim that he had told the defendants that an exemption applied to them. The witness noted that there is also a duty to report tax-exempt income (p. 660).
- He reported the apartment in Pardes Hanna to the tax authorities in 2017, when he was given information about it. The witness denied the claim that he told the defendants that they were exempt from reporting about this apartment (p. 660).
Testimony of Amsalo Ababa (transcript of September 26, 2023)