Life term eyed for coddling tax evaders

Officials and personnel of the graft-ridden Bureau of Internal Revenue should be penalized with life imprisonment if they are found guilty of allowing big taxpayers to evade in exchange for under the table transactions, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said.

“Aside from amendments to the National Internal Revenue Code, if possible we could slap them with reclusion perpetua as maximum penalty for these cases,” Alvarez told BIR com- missioner Cesar Dulay and other officials at a recent hearing.

Alvarez, along with practically all congressmen who attended the hearing of the House ways and means committee last week, couldn’t believe that a multinational company ended up paying a minuscule amount instead of billions of pesos in taxes due.

Dulay’s subordinates, deputy commissioner Teresita Angeles and assistant commissioner Marissa Cabreros, admitted before the committee led by Quirino Rep. Dakila Cua that they allowed Del Monte Philippines Inc. (DMPI) to pay only P65 million out of their P8.7 billion tax assessment.

Alvarez was bewildered at how Dulay could have feigned innocence at such large amount to be lost in government coffers only on the basis that the case didn’t have to pass through his office.

“What kind of a commissioner are you? There is a compromise and yet you don’t know it?” Alvarez asked Dulay.

“We are having difficulty in passing the tax reform bill and yet you are wasting the people’s money?” he remarked.

Alvarez then suggested that BIR internal procedures be modified, at the very least, to let cases of huge taxpayers – those running in billions – to let these pass through the BIR commissioner’s office.

Dulay and the other BIR officials admitted before the House of Representatives last week that Del Monte Philippines Inc. was assessed a total of P8.7 billion for 2011 to 2013, but was allowed to pay a measly P65 million.

He acknowledged the enormous reduction of the multinational company’s tax liability, but clarified he knew nothing about it since the case didn’t pass through his office.

Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Rodel Batocabe made the same observation as Alvarez.

Batocabe said Congress should not allow possible tax leakages, the very problem in raising adequate revenues among tax-collecting agencies of the government.

Tarlac Rep. Noel Villanueva criticized the BIR officials for the massive reduction in DMPI’s tax liability, which is pegged at 99 percent.

“This is not acceptable. This needs further investigation. We are at a losing end. This (P65 million) is not even 20 or 10 percent of the assessed tax liability,” he said.

Cua, for his part, said the committee hearing is for purposes of crafting legislation that would prevent a repeat of the same.

“We are not here to cast judgment. It is just incumbent upon us to find out what happened to the case. We want to know what happened,” he said.