Earlier today, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng had claimed that the clause was only inserted last year and did not exist during the Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration.

Taking to Facebook, Najib attached a photo of the Federal Court judgment in the case of Arumugam Pillai v Government of Malaysia, in which it said that the provision of “pay first and talk afterwards” may be a harsh one but was an intended provision of the legislature with regards to tax evasion.

“I quote a September 1980 Federal Court case where a panel of judges ruled that Section 103 of the tax law empowers the Inland Revenue Board (LHDN) to impose the ‘pay first, discuss later’ clause on taxpayers,” said Najib in a Facebook post.

“The ‘pay first, talk later’ clause has been around for a long time.

“It’s just that when I was the prime minister under the BN government, we never abused our power for political gain, such as what the Pakatan Harapan government did when he (Lim) was a minister, and this has been continued by the Perikatan Nasional government.”

Najib had a bankruptcy notice filed against him earlier this month for failing to pay RM1.74 billion in additional tax arrears and penalties.

On Wednesday, Najib had said during his tenure as the prime minister, the approach used by LHDN was to give leeway to those who had been taxed to seek justice.

LHDN would not have simply declared someone bankrupt as the board would not be able to collect any money, he added.