The appeals court has lowered the jail sentence facing a flower shop owner, who evaded more than BD41,000 in value-added tax (VAT).
In January, the High Criminal Court sentenced the man to three years behind bars, in absentia, ordered him to settle the outstanding BD41,175 to the National Bureau for Revenue (NBR), and fined him an additional BD41,175.
Since he was not present at the original trial, he lodged an objection against the verdict, but in March, judges rejected the initial objection because he once again failed to attend.
The 63-year-old Bahraini businessman finally appeared before the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court and judges re-evaluated the sentence, lowering it to just a year in prison.
However, the court upheld the cumulative BD82,350 in financial penalties.
The GDN earlier reported that the appellant was found guilty of tax evasion, and signing on and filing for taxes but not paying them within the legally-mandated period of time.
He had opened the flower shop in 2017, and his potentially blooming business wilted after it was suspended by the NBR in mid-2025 because of VAT non-payment.
According to NBR officers, the appellant submitted eight tax reports on the bureau’s electronic system, spanning the time periods between the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2022, to Q3 of 2024.
Despite registering with the NBR, acquiring a VAT number and filing his tax reports, he reportedly never ended up paying his dues.
Records on the Sijilat commercial registration (CR) platform show that he owned two other businesses on the same CR as the flower shop – an events management company and a cold store – both currently defunct.
Another NBR officer explained that any business that generates more than BD37,500 in annual revenue from the sale of taxable products has to register with the bureau as a VAT-compliant establishment.
Business owners then submit reports of income generated by their commercial establishments, on a quarterly basis. They are required by law to subtract 10 per cent from revenue and pass them over to the NBR.
Once the reports are approved, she added, owners are given an invoice to pay the VAT, and the case is sent over to collections at the NBR.
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