Opposition leader Khazaradze responds to tax allegations over rental agreement with German Ambassador

Mamuka Khazaradze, imprisoned leader of the opposition party Lelo – For Strong Georgia, has issued his first public statement in response to a growing controversy over a rental agreement involving his family’s property and Germany’s Ambassador to Georgia, Peter Fischer.

The issue gained traction after Georgia’s Revenue Service announced it had launched an investigation into a possible tax violation concerning the lease of an apartment owned by Khazaradze’s family to Ambassador Fischer and his wife.

In a statement released on social media, Khazaradze denied any wrongdoing, asserting that the lease was legally registered and complied with all legal requirements. He acknowledged that his family recently identified a technical issue related to the payment of taxes on the rental income, which he described as stemming from confusion over “source-based taxation.”

"Last week, we ourselves discovered an issue related to a budget tax payment, which was caused by a misunderstanding regarding whether taxation should occur at the source or not,” Khazaradze explained. “We immediately contacted the tax office, the lease was properly registered, and the full amount due was paid. The issue has been completely resolved."

Khazaradze also lashed out at members of the ruling Georgian Dream party, including MPs Gia Volski, Beka Sharmanashvili, and Nodar Shakarashvili, accusing them of launching a coordinated smear campaign against his family through state-aligned media.

“For the past three days, Bidzina Ivanishvili’s puppet deputies and propagandist media have launched an outrageous campaign against my family,” he said, calling their behavior "shameless propaganda."

He went on to defend his business record, stating that his companies have contributed "hundreds of millions of lari to the state budget every year," and challenged Ivanishvili, the ruling party’s founder and billionaire ex-prime minister, to disclose his own tax contributions.

Khazaradze also criticized a recent legal amendment that, according to him, allowed Ivanishvili to withdraw 400 million GEL from the state budget via offshore mechanisms.

Meanwhile, the Georgian Revenue Service confirmed on Thursday that it had opened an inquiry into the matter. In a statement, the agency said:

"Given the high public interest, we would like to inform the public that an investigation has begun regarding the possible tax evasion in connection with a property belonging to Mamuka Khazaradze’s family, allegedly rented to the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, Ernst Peter Fischer."

The agency said it would carry out legally mandated tax control measures to assess the full scope of the case.