Three BIR officers fired for failing to remit tax collections

Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez yesterday ordered the dismissal of three Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) officers for failure to remit tax collections.

The three officers dismissed from the service were Dina D. Neri, Revenue Officer II, BIR Revenue District Office (RDO) 82, for grave misconduct; Myrbeth Bella D. Fornela, Revenue Collection Officer, BIR-Tobias Fornier, for dishonesty; and Joel Hernan T. Cortes, Revenue Collection Officer, Revenue District No. 99, for dishonesty and grave misconduct.

According to the Office of the Ombudsman, Neri failed to remit P220,000 as payment of tax due from the estate of the late Wilfredo Faustino Jr. entrusted to her by Domingo Amores, counsel for the complainant.

Fornela tampered with several reports of collections for the months of April 2000, April, May, June and July 2001, and June 2003, so that the entries no longer coincided with those on the corresponding official receipts, the Office of the Ombudsman charged.

Meanwhile, investigation showed that Cortes falsified the auditor’s copy of the revenue official receipt (ROR) of the withholding tax collected from Crystal Sugar Co. Inc. in Maramag, Bukidnon.

In the ROR, the Ombudsman said Cortes had made it appear that he only collected P132,294.29 in withholding tax from Crystal Sugar, which was P40,000 less than the P172,294.29 that he actually collected.

Gutierrez said that Fornela, Neri, and Cortes also failed to submit their respective counter-affidavits to the charges filed against them.

With their dismissal, Gutierrez also ordered the three BIR officers disqualified from holding public office, with their civil service eligibilities canceled and their benefits forfeited.