Lawyer who bought Shang penthouse unit dodges tax evasion suit
Election lawyer George Erwin Garcia has managed to fend off the tax evasion case filed against him for having acquired a P53-million penthouse unit despite his declared average annual income of less than P742,000 a year.
Garcia’s defense: He bought the condo unit at the Shang Grand Tower in Makati’s Legaspi Village through borrowed funds from undisclosed parties.
His defense was accepted by the Court of Tax Appeals last week, with the tax court agreeing the Bureau of Internal Revenue had failed to assemble enough evidence to sustain a finding of probable cause.
As to his failure to register as a VAT taxpayer, Garcia’s income reported for 2010 was only P1,380,500, below the then minimum threshold of P2.5 million.
The Department of Justice had earlier already dismissed the BIR complaint, but then commissioner Kim Jacinto-Henares, claiming that then justice secretary Leila de Lima had committed grave abuse of discretion in approving the dismissal, filed a petition for certiorari with the tax appellate court.
Garcia has represented Senator Grace Poe, Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri and former Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., among others, in their electoral cases.
When Garcia was charged in 2011, the BIR issued a press release with this tabloid-tone headline: “Lawyer of well-known politicians get dose of his own medicine, is charged by BIR with tax evasion for unexplained expenditures.”
The condo unit in question is actually part of the lower penthouse floor, a 3-bedroom, 294-squaremeter spread whose P53-million price tag came with three parking slots.
Go well, go Shell
Pilipinas Shell is proposing to increase the retainer fee of its non-executive directors like Fernando Zobel and banker Nina Aguas from the current P1 million to P1.2 million “to place the corporation at the 75 percent percentile mark for all components of remuneration.”
As well, the multinational oil company wants to raise the honorarium for every board meeting to P200,000 from the current P100,000.
Despite nearly doubling its profit last year to P7.4 billion, Pilipinas Shell is nevertheless cutting down on this year’s compensation package of its management team, led by new president Cesar Romero.
Romero and 10 other senior officers are projected to receive a combined P57.4 million in
salaries and another P24.3 million in bonuses, compared to last year’s P59.5 million+P86.7 million package when Edgar Chua was president.
And speaking of Chua, who has been elevated to the chairmanship, Shell has put him on a P4.3-million retainership until May “to ensure seamless transition” after his retirement in October.
As to the new president, Romero plans to add a new revenue stream by selling Shell’s excess electricity generated by its natural gas-powered plant in Batangas to the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market.
Ayala Center to have airport bus connection
Ayala Center and the surrounding hotels will finally have their own airport bus connection starting on Wednesday.
UBE Express will charge P300 for one-way passage between any of the four terminals and Glorietta 4 and 5, with stops at Ascott, Dusit Thani, Prince Plaza II, Holiday Inn, Peninsula, Shangri-La, New World, Jinjiang Inn, Fairmont, and Crown Regency.
Downside: Not recommended for those who need to catch a flight, as the initial service frequency interval is every two hours beginning 6 a.m.
Heard through the grapevine
While a widowed society matron who recently married a rich widower seems to have found marital contentment, her daughter is unfortunately suffering the opposite.
The floundering relationship of the daughter with a high-profile government official is now headed to the courts, with the distressed wife even hiring a media-savvy female lawyer to represent her in the coming annulment case.
The female lawyer had incidentally already publicly clashed with the official when the lawyer opposed his nomination to a higher government position.
More clues? Broadcaster Arnold Clavio has nicknamed the official “Angry Bird.”
E-mail: cocktales_tv5@yahoo.com