2023-10-04 06:55:00
Thomas and Yohan, two thirty-year-olds from the Liège region, face 12 months in prison, a fine of 10,000 euros, 118,000 euros in confiscations and a 7-year commercial ban before the Liège Criminal Court for having committed fraud VAT ! Yohan was notably the manager of a bar located in Flémalle.
While the finances of the place were not the most flourishing, Thomas submitted a VAT declaration for the third quarter of 2019. He then reported an investment of 618,000 euros in the building! A declaration which gave the right to a reimbursement of 118,000 euros… As soon as this sum arrived in Yohan’s account, it disappeared.
In fact, payments were made to Thomas’ account in Italy. The money was invested in another bar located on site. A new bar that also ended up bankrupt. An investigation was carried out when the Flémalle bar had just gone bankrupt. No trace of the slightest investment was found since the interested parties failed to provide proof.
The accountant dropped them
Since then, the suspects have been at the CPAS. They find themselves prosecuted in court for tax fraud, but also money laundering. The curatorship, but also the tax administration hope to recover the funds unduly collected. “I lost my mother at the end of 2017,” explained one of the defendants. “I was taking medication and drinking alcohol.”
According to their explanations, their accountant refused to continue working for them. One of them submitted a VAT request. “I filled in the boxes, but I’m not an accountant,” Yohan explained. “I made a mistake. We have made investments worth around 61,000 euros,” he continued. In reality, the interested parties were unable to provide any proof of the slightest investment. According to them, some of the documents remained in Italy. “When I saw the money arrive in the account, I thought it was the money the bank was lending us for our investment in Italy.”
For the prosecution, as well as the civil parties, there is not the slightest doubt that this error was intentional. The defendants’ lawyer stressed that her client had made mistakes during the previous quarter and the next. She pleaded for acquittal, work sentence or suspended sentence.
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