Wimpie Manthata acquitted in SARS tax fraud case at Palm Ridge Court

 In a dramatic turn at the Palm Ridge Magistrate's Court, Vimpie Phineas Manthata and his company, Instrumentation for Traffic Law Enforcement (ITLE), and bookkeeper Judy Rose were acquitted of all charges in a SARS-led tax fraud case involving nearly R19 million.

The charges, stemming from the 2018/2019 tax period, alleged violations of the Tax Administration Act and deliberate submission of false returns.

But Magistrate Phindi Keswa ruled that the State had failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Delivering a firm yet gracious judgment, Magistrate Keswa commended the defence team for their clarity and legal precision: “Thank you for making my job easy by preparing such good heads of argument,” she said from the bench.

“The State could not find error. The State failed to distinguish between clerical oversight and criminal intent.”

She added that the prosecution's case lacked the evidentiary burden required to secure a conviction under the Act.

The State’s case, built on testimony from senior SARS officials, claimed that ITLE had manipulated tax filings to avoid payment.

But the defence, led by attorney Pierre du Toit, had dismantled that narrative with a piercing legal argument that Magistrate Keswa cited directly in her ruling. In his closing submission, Du Toit argued: “This case is not about millions of rands - it is about millions of assumptions.

''The state has not shown even a single deliberate act of deceit. In our law, confusion is not a crime. The burden is not on the accused to prove innocence, but on the State to prove guilt, and it has spectacularly failed to do so.”

Du Toit rooted his argument in landmark case law, including State vd Prinsloo (1975) and State vs  Futché (1997), both of which emphasise the necessity of proving intent beyond negligence. Magistrate Keswa agreed: In a judgement that lasted two hours, Kheswa confirmed in Futché, intent is the foundation of any fraud charge.

And Prinsloo reminds us that mere discrepancies do not constitute criminality unless the mind behind them is proven dishonest. In this case, it was not.”

During the trial, SARS officials conceded under cross-examination that they had no direct evidence of falsified entries or collusion. Rose testified that she had used standard accounting software and practices.

Du Toit argued that errors could easily arise in any fast-growing, mid-size enterprise, but there was no evidence of malfeasance in this case. The courtroom, tense for weeks, erupted in quiet relief as the verdict was handed down.

Though Wimpie and his co-accused still face a separate corruption trial linked to a R191 million SAPS contract, today's result offers a crucial reprieve and tests the strength of the state’s case against Manthata and the other accused.

Legal analyst Thabo Maleka said, “This was a masterclass in tax defence.

''Du Toit was methodical and persuasive. The court rightly held the line: assumptions, no matter how dramatic, are not evidence.”

For now, Manthata walks out of Palm Ridge Court with a clean record and his freedom firmly intact.