Posted on 06/10/2018 5:02:16 AM PDT by reaganaut1
PRETORIA, South Africa — The nation’s tax chief steeled himself. Chiding and pleading with President Jacob Zuma to get him to file his taxes — much less pay the full amount — was always an excruciating task.
And it kept getting worse. One of the president’s sons, a nephew and countless business allies had serious tax problems as well, four former senior officials said, alarming investigators and leaving them wondering what to do.
South Africa’s young democracy had depended on the faith — and taxes — of its people since the end of apartheid, so the risks were evident. If the leader of the African National Congress, his relatives and his influential associates could dodge their tax duties, the rest of the country might shirk them, too, hollowing out the government’s ability to function at the most basic level.
The tax commissioner, Ivan Pillay, said he tried to be discreet, visiting the president several times from 2012 to 2014 to prod him to comply.
“If I am in the way, just tell me and I’ll go,” Mr. Pillay said in a rare interview, recounting his conversations with Mr. Zuma. “I won’t like it, but I’ll go. I’m a disciplined member of the A.N.C.”
Mr. Zuma demurred, insisting there was no need to resign, Mr. Pillay said. Instead, the president dealt with the issue himself a few months later: He abruptly replaced Mr. Pillay with a loyalist who led a sweeping purge of the tax agency, setting off a blistering national scandal that is threatening South Africa in unexpected ways.
Wielding a barrage of fictitious news stories and doctored assertions by one of the world’s biggest auditing firms, KPMG, Mr. Zuma managed to thwart scrutiny into his own taxes, his family’s affairs and his allies’ finances
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Nice to hear its working out for them.
I talked to some HONEST Jamiacans, and they said things ran better when the English were in power.
It might take another thirty years, but this is another country that will eventually collapse into a civil war and be broken up into three or four different lands.
They will run out of water, food & electricity way before that.
The inescapable.....
Crime and poverty prevail where ever brown people rule the roost.
How fitting that the commies of the ANC won’t pay their taxes.
“Crime and poverty prevail where ever brown people rule the roost.”
Watchu mean ? Bobby Moogawbee and Hugo Chavez and the ANC prove U ain’t nuttin ! /sarc
Zuma the Lebron James of SA.
American companies, such as Microsoft, still invest in S. Africa. Stockholders beware.
“I talked to some HONEST Jamiacans, and they said things ran better when the English were in power.”
I’ve had similar conversations.
L
Wait, wait. I thought this story was about South Africa. Why is it suddenly about Mrs. Bill Clinton?
Kind of like the USA.
Just another African kleptocracy.
South Africa's neo-totalitarianism...
Hold muh BARF BAG ALERT!
The ANC became all that it opposed and it enriched itself through massive graft and theft.
Then again, this is what happens with one-party rule; there’s no accountability.
South Africa used to be a well-rounded country. No longer.
So they are using the American model where the big political figures (Hillary comes to mind) get away with everything but lessers get hosed.
An old woman in Uganda once asked me, "Please, when are the British coming back?"
A blind man in Mali said to me, "What this country really needs is re-colonization!"
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