BP Southern Africa’s hopes of getting R224m in tax refunds from the SA Revenue Service (Sars) were dashed on Friday when the Pretoria high court refused it leave to appeal against a previous dismissal of its claim.
The oil giant has been locked in a legal battle with Sars since 2019 when it claimed to have sold 3-million gallons of diesel to Zimbabwe and was therefore entitled to refunds under the diesel rebate scheme.
Sars rejected BP’s claim, saying the fuel never left SA and BP was involved in a fraudulent scheme to deceive the tax authority. Sars also demands R275m in penalties from BP for the alleged fraud.
BP denied any wrongdoing, and challenged Sars’ decision in the Pretoria high court in May last year. It argued that it had valid documents to prove the fuel was exported and that the Zimbabwean consignees existed and were legitimate importers.
In January, judge Stuart Wilson dismissed BP’s case, saying there was no evidence the fuel ever left the country and the documents BP relied on were forgeries. He could not find that BP had acted with the intention to defraud Sars, and ordered that the issue of fraud be referred for trial at a later date. No date for the tax fraud trial has been set.
BP sought to appeal against the judgment, hoping to have its refund claim heard at the same time as the fraud allegations.
But on Friday Wilson refused BP’s request.
“BP did not (and still does not) really know whether the fuel left the country,” Wilson wrote on Friday, dismissing BP’s leave to appeal. “BP cannot say whether the consignees in Zimbabwe to whom it says it exported the fuel actually received the fuel.”
The documents BP relied on to prove there was a basis for a tax refund “did not in fact relate to the fuel BP says it exported”.
Sars alleged the documents were, in any event, “forgeries”. BP “did nothing to gainsay” Sars’ forgery allegation.
Wilson said that even ignoring these issues, “BP would still have had to have demonstrated that the fuel was conveyed by a licensed remover of goods, and that BP had proof that the consignee received it.”
BP has the option of petitioning the Supreme Court of Appeal for leave to appeal, but it is not clear whether it will do so.
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