Yair Lapid
Photo: Alex Kolomoisky
Lapid sought expert opinion on 'Milchan law' when serving PM
Responding to report that he requested professional assessments during post as finance min. on law now at the heart of a PM-related bribery scandal, before Netanyahu demanded it be promoted, Yesh Atid leader insists it ‘is more proof that he acted professionally.’
Yesh Atid leader MK Yair Lapid said Thursday that a report claiming that claiming that he asked the Budget Department when he served as finance minister under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prepare an expert opinion on the “Milchan law”
before rejecting his boss’s request to promote it only demonstrates his professional integrity.
Tax Authority officials estimated that an extension of the exemption period would have given Milchan tens of millions of shekels in tax benefits.
“The report further strengthens Lapid’s testimony,” said a statement on behalf of the Netanyahu rival. “Here is more proof that Lapid acted only according to professional standards and gave them full support when facing pressure from above to advance the bill.”
When the Israel Police announced in February that sufficient evidence exists to indict Netanyahu for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in two cases against him, Case 1000 and Case 2000, it was also published that Lapid was asked to testify about the alleged pressure exerted on him by the prime minister to progress with the amendement to an exisitng law that would have extended tax exemptions for returning Israeli expatriates from 10 to 20 years.
Netanyahu allegedly sought to amend the law and extend the exemption period to 20 years, which would've greatly benefitted Milchan.
Yair Lapid (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)
Tax Authority officials estimated that an extension of the exemption period would have given Milchan tens of millions of shekels in tax benefits.
Lapid, however, refused to amend the law.
The subject became a central focus of the police inquiry into Netanyahu’s dealings in the bribery investigation, with evidence pointing to the conclusion that the Israeli premier had thrown his weight behind legislation in return for expensive gifts that Milchan had furnished on him and his family.
On Thursday morning, the Haaretz newspaper reported that Lapid asked the budget department in the treasury to formulate a professional assessment of the law before rejecting Netanyahu’s push for its promotion.
When asked about the matter in light of his testimony about his personal relations between him and Milchan, Lapid said he dismissed Milchan and Netanyahu’s requests on the matter.
“I never received a single rusted penny,” Lapid wrote on Facebook.
“In 2013 when I took up my post in the Finance Ministry, I signed a Conflict of Interest Agreement. It goes without saying that I therefore reported my acquaintance with Milchan (he is on my resume and I have written about our relationship more than once). The legal advisor decided that there is no conflict of interest and therefore that there was no need to include Milchan in the agreement. The work that I did for him for a few months in the 90s simply did not create a conflict of interest,” he continued.
“I will not enter right now into the involvement of the prime minister on the matter, which is part of the legal proceedings, but I have done my part. I simply said that ‘under no circumstances’ and that was the end of it,” he wrote regarding the law.
Milchan and Netanyahu (Photo: Courtesy of Channel 2 News)
According to the report on Thursday morning, in August 2013, Lapid’s economic advisor, Rotem Rulf, approached the Budget Department and asked for the assessment on the Milchan Law.
Officials in the department were aware that the issue had arisen due to a meeting that had taken place with Lapid, but were not sure with whom.
The department assumed, however, that a tycoon was likely involved in the matter since the law constituted an unambiguous benefit for entrepreneurs.
Within a few days, a five-page document was drawn up justifying positions against the amendment. After the document was formulated, Rulf convened a meeting attended by professionals attached to the Finance Ministry during which she asked them questions about their opposition to the law.
Coalition Chairman MK David Amsalem (Likud), who ridiculed Lapid for his testimony, responded to the report by highlighting what he described as hypocrisy in the police’s treatment of Netanyahu and the Yesh Atid leader.
David Amsalem (Photo: Yoav Dudkevitch))
“Selective enforcement is a crime. It can’t be that Prime Minister Netanyahu is checked using metal detectors and an investigation is open against him over every shadow of suspicion in his surroundings, while when there are serious suspicions of a conflict of interest in the matter of Yair Lapid, they do not even carry out an initial examination,” Amsalem complained.
“If it’s not Netanyahu, is there no investigation?” he asked. “The public’s faith in the police hangs in the balance and that’s why the attorney general should be instructing the police to immediately summon Yair Lapid for an investigation,” he concluded.
Hitting back, a statement on Lapid’s behalf accused Netanyahu’s closest associates of “time and again attempting to slander," and that every time they do so "it becomes clearer that the prime minister received a million shekels and pushed the Milchan law while Lapid did not receive a penny from anyone and did everything to stop the law.”
