As part of a plea agreement between the parties, Adv. Inbal Haim from the Southern District Attorney’s Office filed an amended indictment in which Ali Abu Alkian confessed. From the indictment, it appears that during the years 2016-2020, the defendant accumulated income from various occupations. Despite this, he refrained from keeping account books and submitting annual reports, and also refrained from reporting income amounting to NIS 2,000,000.
As part of the plea agreement, the parties agreed that if the deficiencies are rectified (payment of his debts to the tax authorities), the state will petition for a prison sentence of 10 months and a suspended sentence, and a fine of NIS 350,000 was also agreed upon.
During the sentencing arguments, Adv. Haim noted the harm to protected values, the tax collection mechanism, the equality in bearing the tax burden, and the damage to the public coffers. She also noted that the agreement reflects, among other things, the evidentiary difficulties in the case, Abu Alkian’s personal circumstances, and the fact that he paid the debt to the Income Tax Authority in the amount of approximately NIS 700,000.
In the sentencing, Judge Achi’am Tzuriel of the Beersheba Magistrate’s Court ruled that Abu Alkian acted to achieve easy profit at the public’s expense and to avoid paying true taxes. This was not a one-time act or a momentary failure, as the actions were carried out systematically over 5 years.
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