The Ramle Magistrate's Court sentenced Avner Elouk, owner of Sagiv Fire Protection Technologies Ltd., to 44 months in prison after he was convicted of severe tax offenses, including 35 offenses of unlawfully deducting input tax. Alongside this, Elouk was given a 10-month suspended sentence and a fine of NIS 100,000 or 10 months in prison in lieu of payment, while the company was given only a nominal fine.
According to the sentence, between 2012 and 2015, the company owned by the defendant received 139 fictitious invoices from five different companies, included them in its periodic reports, and unlawfully deducted input tax totaling approximately NIS 5.75 million.
The indictment, filed in 2018, shows that Elouk tried to disguise his part in carrying out the offenses by appointing various individuals to management roles in the company at different periods. In practice, those individuals were minor figures who operated under him and did as he commanded, and the court therefore determined in the verdict that the defendant was the dominant and leading figure in carrying out the offenses.
In the sentence, the court noted Elouk's criminal record as an aggravating factor, which includes previous convictions, including tax offenses for which he even served an actual prison term, as well as the fact that he did not remove the financial default, even partially.
The court rejected his claim that his sentence should be compared to that of another party involved in the affair, in light of the differences in the parties' roles, the scope of the offenses, and their personal and criminal circumstances. In addition, it was determined that Elouk is not entitled to leniency in his sentence due to the lapse of time, since an examination of the protocols showed that he was the one who requested numerous delays in the case, and evidence was not heard for four years.
The case was handled by attorneys Eitan Lamay and Dvir Amar from the legal unit of the Central District at the Israel Tax Authority, and was investigated by the Tel Aviv VAT and Customs investigations unit.