Lawyer Suspected of Claiming Disabled Tax Break on Investment Property

An attorney from central Israel is suspected of buying an investment home for about 6 million shekels, renting it out, and falsely claiming he lived there in order to receive a 450,000-shekel purchase tax discount available to disabled buyers. The suspect is Rafael Yitzhak, a lawyer from Ramat Hasharon, who is being investigated for offenses under the Real Estate Taxation Law, including false declarations, omitted information, and using fraud or deceit to evade tax.

According to the suspicion, Yitzhak bought another house in Ramat Hasharon in 2024. Because it was an additional property, he should have paid about 480,000 shekels in purchase tax, or 8% of the transaction value. About six months later, he asked the Netanya real estate tax office to amend the assessment and reduce the tax to 30,000 shekels, or 0.5%, under Regulation 11, which grants the reduced rate to a disabled person, blind person, or terror victim who buys a home for their own residence.

That discount does not apply to an investment property. After approving the request, the tax office carried out a routine inspection to verify that he had actually moved in, and found the home was being rented to another family living there. The office then asked him for explanations and supporting documents. He submitted municipal tax, electricity, water, and identity-card records intended to show he lived at the property.

An internal check, however, found that his address change was made only after the tax office contacted him, while the rest of his family still lived in the old home. Following the inspection findings, the Central Region tax investigations unit opened a criminal probe into suspected false reporting, conducted searches, seized evidence, questioned the lawyer, and took statements from others involved. On Tuesday, he was brought before the Rishon LeZion Magistrate’s Court for a remand hearing and was released under restrictive conditions by consent. He is still presumed innocent and has not been convicted.