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Najib’s daughter questions tax charges
“And I have never thought that my husband naming me as joint owner of the house and money from him as household expenses can be considered income, ” she said.
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Nooryana Najwa (The Star/ANN)
F
ormer Prime Minister Najib Razak's daughter Nooryana Najwa Najib said she never thought to be a co-owner of a house with her husband, and money from her husband as household expenses could be considered income.
Nooryana said the truth would prevail in court.“Having spent many years studying and briefly working overseas, I have never operated any business in Malaysia, and have never bid for nor received any government contracts of any sort.
“And I have never thought that my husband naming me as joint owner of the house and money from him as household expenses can be considered income, ” she said.
Nooryana Najwa is being sued by the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) for RM10.3mil in unpaid taxes from 2011 to 2017.
She said that when the IRB started auditing her last year, she submitted all the proof, including detailed bank transfer documents that showed most of the so-called income from abroad were transferred from her husband’s family.
“I also furnished proof, showing that my in-laws purchased a home directly using their funds from abroad. My husband’s family then listed me as joint owner of the home.
“Somehow, this act of listing me as joint owner is now considered by the government as my ‘income’.
“And this forms the bulk of the ‘tax due’, even though the payment for the house did not even go through me, ” she said.
She also said her husband and his family had been independently wealthy long before they met and her mother-in-law was previously married to one of Kazakhstan’s richest tycoons for 10 years.
She said that even if payments from a husband to the wife were considered income, the transfers were from abroad and should not be taxed.
She added that a smaller portion of the so-called income was wang hantaran (dowry), as well as gifts from family and friends.
The government, as the plaintiff, filed a writ of summons and statement of claim through the IRB on July 24 at the Shah Alam High Court in Selangor, naming Nooryana Najwa as the defendant.
According to the statement of claim, the government alleged that she had failed to submit the individual income tax return forms to the IRB, under Section 77 of the Income Tax Act 1967, for the years of assessment 2011 to 2017.
The government said that an assessment under subsection 90(3) of the Tax Act, including penalties, had been raised through Notices of Assessment dated March 15,2019.
