The SA Revenue Service (Sars) will take on former Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) CEO Lucky Montana unopposed in the Pretoria high court, in a legal bid to attach his assets over a multimillion-rand tax debt.
Sars has also requested Montana, now an MP for the MK party, be declared insolvent because his assets are worth only R10.5m and the tax debt from 2009 to 2019 has ballooned to R55m, including interest.
An insolvency declaration would threaten Montana’s job as an MP.
The matter has been placed on the unopposed court roll after Montana lost his appeal for condonation for the late filing of his answering affidavit last month.
The tax authority’s sequestration application was lodged in 2024, and Montana’s answering affidavit was initially due for April 26 2024 but failed to file for more than a year.
The matter has been enrolled for hearing on November 19.
Should the unopposed hearing proceed, Montana will not be able to advance his defence that the tax authority used incorrect methodologies, arguing that some of the funds Sars listed as undeclared income for him were not paid to him directly.
The legal debacle is pinned on Sars’ audit of Montana’s tax affairs from 2009 to 2019. The audit findings detail income and capital gains he did not declare for a decade.
Montana argues some of the funds which Sars lists as undeclared income were money paid by law firms and a company called Precise Trade and Invest towards the purchase of his belongings but were not traced as income directly from him.
Sars argues Montana failed to declare R36m in income and more than R2m in capital gains over 10 years. It wants the court to appoint a trustee to undertake the sequestration of his estate and the possession of his assets to recover the outstanding tax debt.
Montana spent millions of rand on cars and houses. His tax debt includes money paid by Precise Trade and Invest, owned by lawyer Riaan van der Walt, towards the purchase of properties owned by Montana. The property payments by Precise were also flagged in the Zondo commission on state capture report.
AJ Kempen Inc, a law firm based in Pretoria, paid deposits for properties bought by Montana. This was also recorded as undeclared funds by Montana.
It is unclear what action Montana will take to oppose legal proceedings against him.
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