Walk the talk on tax payments, BBM urged

House Deputy Minority Leader France Castro yesterday urged President Marcos to “walk the talk” on payment of taxes.

Reacting to his call for the public to pay the correct taxes on time, Castro said Marcos is right in his call “but he should walk the talk.”

She noted that the Supreme Court has long issued a ruling that the Marcos family should pay their unpaid real estate taxes and by doing otherwise, the President has lost the “moral ascendancy to make the call.”

The unpaid estate taxes of the Marcoses reportedly amounted originally to P203 billion.

“In truth, it is difficult for ordinary people to pay taxes from goods, utilities, income and others, and they need relief from these taxes now,” Castro said.

The lawmaker, representing the ACT Teachers party-list, said the government should remove the excise tax and value added tax on oil and basic commodities.

She said the President should also certify as urgent the Wealth Tax Bill to let the richest one percent in the country “give back more to the country’s coffers.”

Meanwhile, the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law (CARMMA) challenged the President to set a good example and pay his family’s billions of pesos estate tax liabilities.

“With his recent statements ‘encouraging’ the public to pay their taxes, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. should walk his talk – and pay his family’s P203-billion estate tax deficiencies now,” CARMMA said.

CARMMA is composed mostly of survivors of human rights abuses during martial law.

“It has been 24 years, in March 1999, when the Supreme Court ruled as final and executory its 1997 decision for Marcos Jr. and his mother Imelda, named as co-administrators of the estate left by dictator Marcos Sr., to pay estate tax dues amounting to P23 billion. Due to surcharges and penalties, this amount has been valued at P203 billion,” CARMMA pointed out.

Furthermore, the group noted that in December 2021, the BIR had sent a demand letter to the Marcoses to pay their tax dues.

“It is the height of temerity that the Marcoses continue to refuse to pay their tax dues, while Marcos Jr. implores the public to pay their taxes,” CARMMA said.

“We are angered by this display of gross insensitivity and arrogance, as the poor majority of Filipinos are in dire need of social services and aid at a time of rising unemployment and inflation rates,” it added.