Filmmaker Caparas faces arrest anew

The Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) has again issued arrest warrants against filmmaker Carlo Caparas in connection with a new set of tax evasion charges filed against him.

The CTA Second Division found probable cause to issue arrest warrants against the award-winning filmmaker on the three counts of charges for allegedly violating Section 255 of the National Internal Revenue Code, which sets penal- ties for failure to file or supply correct information in income tax returns.

The tax court sent copies of the arrest warrants to law enforcement agencies and set the bail at P20,000 for each count.

The First Division, which handles the fourth count, has yet to issue a resolution on the charges filed before the tax court on Jan. 25.

The new charges followed the four other cases filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against Caparas in 2011.

The earlier four charges were for supposedly violating Section 108 of the National Internal Revenue Code, or failure to file a value-added tax return.

The CTA Third Division is handling the case, which is currently on trial.

The cases stemmed from a complaint of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, which alleged that Caparas evaded payment of taxes amounting to over P101.8 million from 2006 to 2009.

The preliminary investigation conducted by the DOJ alleged that he failed to file value- added tax returns for incomes worth P850,951,388.60 that he received from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office for two television programs he produced from 2006 to 2009.