Tax court drops utilities firm’s bid for review

THE COURT of Tax Appeals (CTA) En Banc has dismissed the petition for review filed by First Philippine Utilities Corp. for lack of jurisdiction over the case.

In the decision promulgated Sept. 4, the court stated that it only has jurisdiction over cases that have already been decided and not in “interlocutory orders.”

The First Philippine Utilities filed the petition at the CTA En Banc seeking the reversal of the resolutions of the CTA Second Division dated Feb. 27, 2017 and May 4, 2017 which denied its motions to declare the alleged deficiency tax for the taxable year 2009 as null and void amounting to P289, 733,393.79 as assessed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

“The Court En Banc finds the filing of the instant case premature, and must perforce be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction,” the decision read.

The court has cited a previous Supreme Court decision that the CTA En Banc “has jurisdiction over final order or judgment but not over interlocutory orders issued by the CTA in division.”

According to the cited Supreme Court decision on the case titled Commissioner of Internal Revenue vs. Court of Tax Appeals and CBK Power Co. Ltd., a “‘final’ judgment” is an order which “finally disposes of a case” and leaves “nothing more to be done by the Court in respect thereto.”

An interlocutory, on the other hand, is an order that does not finally dispose a case and continues the “task of adjudicating the parties’ contentions and determining their rights and liabilities as regards each other, but obviously indicates that other things remain to be done by the Court.”—