Government still has to collect P60 B from tax credit scam

The government has yet to collect P60 billion in lost revenues from a tax-credit scam perpetrated 10 years ago, even as the new expanded value-added tax is set to take effect tomorrow, a lawyer for one of the witnesses in the case said yesterday.

The government expects to raise P80 billion in revenues within a year after the 10-percent value-added tax is increased by two percent starting Feb. 1.

But Jose Isagani Gonzales, counsel of witness Felix Chingkoe, said he doubts that the government is really serious about cleansing the bureaucracy.

"How can the government justify its demand for more taxes when it cannot even collect those already available?" he asked.

"And how sincere is it in prosecuting those who cheated from and plundered government coffers? The tax-credit scam is a classic example of how serious the government is on the matter," Gonzales said.

During the past 10 years that the case has been pending in court," Gonzales said, "nothing significant has happened."

"Lamentably, after spending P70 million, the government was able to collect a meager P11 million without sending anybody to jail," he said.

"Task Force 156 (the group probing the scam) failed and did not exert efforts to identify and unmask the masterminds and beneficial owners of other firms involved in the scam," he said.

Felix Chingkoe is a witness against his brother Faustino Chingkoe and his wife, Gloria, who are facing charges in court for alleged involvement in the procurement of spurious tax credit certificates by 11 of their firms.

These certificates were used to avail themselves of tax rebates. — Delon Porcalla