Major tax cases languishing in DOJ – Henares

MANILA, Philippines – Most tax evasion cases filed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue are languishing at the Department of Justice (DOJ), according to BIR Commissioner Kim Henares.

“We have so far filed 472 cases. Some of these have been resolved, some have been elevated to the Court of Tax Appeals (CTA), while a lot are still pending with the DOJ,” Henares said.

She said she knows that many businessmen are not happy with the efforts of her agency to run after tax evaders.

“It is those who are not paying the right taxes who are unhappy. I couldn’t care less if they are unhappy. Those who are paying the right amount of taxes have no problem with us,” she said.

Henares said she and her people would continue filing tax evasion cases and collecting taxes until the last day of the Aquino administration.

Two cases that have reached the CTA are those of outgoing Sarangani congressman and senator-elect Manny Pacquiao and film producer-director Carlo Caparas.

The tax court has postponed Caparas’ arraignment, which is supposed to take place today, after he filed a motion to consolidate the four tax evasion cases he is facing.

Three of the four cases are with the CTA’s Second Division, while the fourth is with the First Division.

Caparas has posted bail of P80,000 for the four cases.

The BIR filed the case against him in October 2010.

The agency claimed that Caparas failed to pay taxes on the P850,951,388.60 he received from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office for different television programs he produced for PCSO from 2006 to 2009.

The BIR said the filmmaker owed the government P344,596,331.97 in total income tax and P195,613,874.93 in value-added tax.

As for Pacquiao, the BIR assessed him a tax deficiency amounting to P3.2 billion, including penalties.

The boxing champion opted to contest the assessment in the CTA.