"The paying of real taxes in Israel is part of democracy. Tax evasion isn't a national sport, nor is it legitimate. If everyone were to pay their real taxes, we could happily lower the tax rate in Israel, lower VAT, and use the tax revenues to improve the situation of Israel's people and deal with education, welfare, and everything that Israel's people need," said Israel Tax Authority director general Moshe Asher at the Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Israel conference in Eilat.
Asher described the Tax Authority's operations against tax evaders and black capital. He said that the struggle against tax evaders included expanding enforcement activity to landlords. "The Tax Authority will operate at several levels to find landlords who owe taxes above the current exemption," he said.
Asher said that the Tax Authority's Justice Line (i.e. calls from informants) had provided information on landlords who do not report their rental income. "The information has been handled, and we've recently carried out several campaigns in the field, some of which have included the arrest of landlords whose scale of operations was that of a business. At the same time, we carry out extensive intelligence operations to find more apartments."
The Tax Authority is also targeting Israeli black capital located overseas. "There is substantial black capital, some of which is abroad. We recently launched the voluntary disclosure campaign on foreign assets and income, which netted 1,300 applications. In this campaign, we lowered the interest payment on tax debts, and provided legal immunity. This brought in a lot of money."
In addition to the money reported, the Tax Authority is seeking information on Israeli money overseas through collaboration and information sharing with other countries. "We've discovered NIS 13 billion in Israelis' unreported capital overseas, and intend to get it through collaboration with other countries. It was decided in the world to promote international information sharing agreements to uncover black capital in the world."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 3, 2013
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