At the end of last July, a special committee on tax evasion in the Ministry of Finance of the Syrian regime’s government stated that Syrian businessman Tarif al-Akhras, cousin of Asma al-Assad, wife of the regime’s president, evaded taxes amounting to 409 billion Syrian pounds in just one year.

The local Hashtag site quoted special sources saying that a committee from the Directorate of Inquiry and Tax Evasion in the Ministry of Finance conducted an inspection visit to Homs governorate, focusing on the Middle East Sugar and Middle East Oils factories owned by Tarif al-Akhras in the industrial city of Hassia.

According to the sources, the committee discovered significant differences in the accounts of concealed and undeclared local sales during the inspection visit. These discrepancies amounted to about 188 billion Syrian pounds in the sugar company and about 221 billion Syrian pounds in the oils company, bringing the total tax evasion within one year to 409 billion Syrian pounds.

In light of noticeable recent changes to the economic front of the Syrian regime, questions arise as to whether the regime’s pursuit of Tarif al-Akhras is a form of restriction on his work, similar to what happened previously with other businessmen, most notably Rami Makhlouf, the cousin of the regime’s president, among others.

In 2019, the Customs Directorate took a series of decisions against al-Akhras, restricting his financial facilities or allowing him to move any of his accounts. This was said to be an “obligation to deposit in the Syrian pound support fund,” ending with customs reserving his and his children’s movable and immovable funds on the pretext of violating customs items, which was later lifted when the reasons for it ceased to exist.

Preventive seizure is defined as placing a debtor’s property under judicial control to prevent any legal or physical act that would lead to its removal or the removal of its fruits from the general guarantee circle for the seizing creditor. Preventive seizure is not an executive measure but rather a precautionary one, as the seized property cannot be executed upon until the creditor obtains an executive document against the debtor. The preventive seizure involves the debtor’s movable and immovable properties.

Who is Tarif al-Akhras?

Tarif al-Akhras is the second largest importer and exporter in Syria, and the owner of Alya Real Estate Development Company. He founded the Al-Akhras Group, a major company in commodities, trade, processing, and logistics services operating throughout Syria.

Born in Homs in 1951, according to the Pro Justice website, he founded his group in 1973, initially as a small engineering company before it transformed into a large group owning the Middle East sugar factory, Soulina oil factory, Middle East feed factory, Trans Béton building supplies company, and Samba ice cream factory.

He is considered one of Syria’s most prominent businessmen and owns import lines for sugar and sunflower oil, as well as a plant for refining and manufacturing white sugar, alcohol, molasses, and yeast, with a capital of five billion Syrian pounds.

Along with his children, he also owns a plant for pressing and refining olive oil and producing raw and imported vegetable oils for manufacturing hydrogenated vegetable ghee, with a capital of one billion Syrian pounds in addition to other companies.

Tarif Al-Akhras benefited from the intertwined relations between the Assad family and the al-Akhras family, especially after the relationship between Bashar al-Assad and Asma al-Akhras in Britain in the 1990s, and later their marriage in 2000. He entered into supplying goods to the army such as oils and sugar, benefiting from the rampant corruption in that institution, which increased his wealth and the projects he launched, most notably the sugar factory with an annual production capacity of 700,000 tons.

His activities expanded after entering the investment field in the industrial city of Hassia in Homs, investing billions of pounds in various sectors such as sugar, oils, mills, meat canning, bananas, fish, concrete, and iron. He also established the land transport company “Across the East,” in addition to founding the commercial center “Trans Mall,” and worked in the field of real estate by establishing the Alya Real Estate Development company, which implemented the Homs suburb project.

Tarif al-Akhras also founded Souria Holding Company, Arabia Insurance Company, headed the Syrian Grain Industry Union, Al-Khabar weekly newspaper, Al-Taj industrial investments, and Jordan Syria Bank in partnership with his children Murhaf, Diana, and Noura. He benefited during that period from his relationship with the former Homs governor, Iyad Ghazal, a personal friend of Bashar al-Assad.

With the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011, he supported the regime forces and backed them in suppression operations by supplying them with foodstuffs under contracts worth billions of pounds, as well as providing them with transport vehicles from his company “Across the East.” He also took care of a portion of the regime supporters in Homs, which led the regime to support his works and projects by various available means.

No restriction, Revenue collection from proximate individuals

Syrian political economy researcher Ibrahim Yassin explained to Enab Baladi that all businessmen refuse to pay taxes and evade them by all means. Since Tarif al-Akhras is close to Bashar al-Assad, he enjoys a type of immunity that makes institutions overlook his projects, in his opinion.

Yassin does not see the pursuit of al-Akhras to pay taxes as a restriction on his interests, despite his connection to the Asma al-Assad axis, as his projects are still ongoing.

The Syrian regime practically relies on collecting revenues from all close businessmen and economic pillars who no one dared to mention their names like Rami Makhlouf and others, and Tarif al-Akhras is no exception, according to the researcher. He pointed out that the regime is practically bankrupt and needs money from any source, and what it does in the context of taxes is one of the sources that brought it not insignificant amounts in earlier times.

Economically, tax evasion is defined as all forms of escaping the tax burden, regardless of its type, and failing to acknowledge the taxpayer (whether an individual or a company) of their tax obligations towards the state by not paying the due taxes and fees, through actions and practices that violate the law and its provisions, affecting the tax revenue of the public treasury. The reasons motivating individuals or companies to practice tax evasion are classified into legislative, political, administrative, ethical, social, and economic reasons.

A source of treasury support

At the beginning of 2021, the Ministry of Finance in the regime government announced the formation of a committee “to study the tax system, review tax legislations, and propose legislative amendments to tax policy.”

The main goal of forming this committee was to re-study the entire Syrian tax system, work on achieving tax justice, combat tax evasion, and achieve appropriate revenue for expenditure operations.

In a report published by the government Al-Baath newspaper in January 2022 titled “A Year After Its Formation: Did the Committee to Develop Our Tax System and Legislation Achieve Its Goals?” financial experts (not named) said that the tax system in Syria lacks the fundamentals of a fair tax system, the most important of which are justice, convenience, clarity, and economy in collection expenses.

The report confirmed that previously imposed taxes and fees, as well as those currently imposed, constitute a significant burden on many small, medium, and micro-business owners.