The Marcos estate tax case: Coming to court with clean hands

AS we wrote last Tuesday, Bongbong Marcos lost his case in the Supreme Court on the tax liability of his father’s estate and that the decision has become final and executory. He, however, complained that there’s a lot of fake news on the case and that it would be better that the matter be left to the discretion of the court. Let’s go over the Court’s decision and see if there are indeed things that the Court still has to det er mi ne.

Penned by Justice Justo Torres Jr., the decision was unanimously approved by the entire Second Division of the Court composed of Justices Florenz Regalado (the division chairman), Flerida Ruth Romero, Reynato Puno and Vicente Mendoza. The decision was not only unanimous; it was also well-reasoned as the justices took pains to address all the supposed errors that Marcos claimed the Court of Appeals committed in denying his petition to review the acts of the Commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

Here are the issues that BBM raised and the Supreme Court’s explanation why they do not deserve merit:

One. That the government was precluded from resorting to the tax remedies of levy and sale by the special proceeding for the allowance of the late President Marcos’will that was still pending before the regional trial court. The Court disagreed, ruling that “(t)here is nothing in the Tax Code, and in the pertinent remedial laws” that implies that the probate court has to approve the government’s claim for estate taxes before it can be enforced.

Two. The tax assessments, levy and sale were premature because of the numerous pending cases questioning the ownership of the elder Marcos of several properties. The Court said it was “at a loss as to how these cases are relevant” to the issue in the light of BBM’s failure to allege that the properties that were levied upon were among those involved in the numerous pending cases that BBM alleged.

“The mere fact that the decedent has pending cases INVOLVING ILL-GOTTEN WEALTH (all caps mine) does not affect the enforcement of tax assessments over the properties indubitably included in his estate,” the Court held.

Three. The BIR’s total assessment of P23,292,607.638 is different from the findings of the Department of Justice and therefore indicates “uncertainty” on the part of the government as to the total value of the estate of BBM’s father. The Court dismissed this claim as a “last ditch effort to assail the assessment of estate tax which had already become final and unappealable.” It is not the DOJ but the BIR that is tasked to compute taxes due, the Court added.

Four. BBM was not notified, much less served with copies of the notices of levy. Not so, the Court said, “after considering the facts and circumstances, as well as evidences, (we find) that there was sufficient, constructive and/or actual notice” to BBM as well as to his mother, Imelda.

“We cannot therefore, countenance petitioner’s insistence that he was denied due process,” the Court declared.

SOME candidates in the upcoming local and national elections are savvy— they know how to play to the emotions of their prospective voters; they know talking like an intellectual in a Philippine political landscape could turn off the electorate.

During campaign sorties or media interviews, some of these aspirants often discuss problems of the ordinary Filipinos like injustices borne out of poverty.

As it is often the case, candidates will make promises to solve the problems. They speak with authority as if they are the saviors of the nation beset with troubles; some of them speak as if they know what they are talking about, not knowing that their statements are offensive.

Such is the case of popular broadcaster Raffy Tulfo, the frontrunner in the senatorial race in the May 9, 2022 polls. In a recent television

“Where there was an opportunity to raise objections to government action, and such opportunity, was disregarded, for no justifiable reason, the party claiming oppression then becomes the oppressor of the orderly functions of government.”

“He who comes to court must come with clean hands. Otherwise, he not only taints his name, but ridicules the very structure of established authority.”

Note the quotation marks. Those words came from the Supreme Court in Ferdinand Marcos II vs. Court of Appeals, et al (G.R. 120880, June 5, 1997). May resibo. It’s not fake news.