Henares going after only the small fry

Internal revenue Commissioner Kim Henares is running amuck against “tax cheats,” zeroing in on doctors, lawyers, accountants and other professionals. The Philippine Medical Association cried foul over the BIR ad denouncing doctors for paying much less in taxes than school teachers. Henares gave an example: One doctor earning P1.07 million in one year paid only P7,424 in taxes; while a school teacher earning about P852,000 paid about P221,000! (Front Page , 3/4/14) The ad carried a picture of a doctor on the shoulders of a school teacher, conveying the shameful message that people with less earnings are bearing the greater cost of government. The Bureau of Internal Revenue’s “shame game” has truly gone the way of the bizarre!

Was Henares talking about this country? Can she tell us which school here really pays about P75,000 a month to its teachers? That should be good news to many of our fine college graduates and post-grads who line up under the merciless heat of the sun for jobs overseas as domestic servants or caregivers! And with respect to the doctor who was identified by Henares as “a certain Marjorie Villanea,” has she been convicted of tax evasion by final judgment? If not, she is still presumed innocent. But why has the BIR already put her to shame, maligned and libeled her in such a horrible, terrible manner? For all we know, she was a victim of a calamity the previous year and lost so much. Was she not entitled to claim deductions from her gross income like any other business corporations, thus accounting for her low tax payment the next year? And even if true that “Villanea” cheated, what percentage of practicing physicians throughout the country is shortchanging the government in such horrendous tax evasion schemes? In all likelihood, the example Henares gave,  assuming it was not anecdotal, was isolated, but no matter, “generalizations” produce better sound bytes!

Needless to say, the whole nation should be behind the internal revenue commissioner. But there are legitimate issues that she should address first. Where is the tax money she is desperately trying to collect going? In light of recent discoveries of rampant pillaging and plundering of public funds, the templated excuse of public service rings hollow. Sobrang gasgas na po ang palusot na iyan!  “Public service” in government stinks like all public toilets! And pray tell, what “public service” is the government doing for free? Every conceivable “public service” now has a specific price to pay, quite apart from the income taxes! Henares can no longer brush off questions of where all the income tax payments are going as not part of her job description (i.e., all she is tasked to do is just to collect and collect) any more than she can distance herself from a government that can do nothing to stop criminal wastage of the people’s money!

Her smug attitude of resorting to threats of jail time, without inspiring taxpayers to do their part in nation-building in the face of countless scams involving tax money gone to waste in the hundreds of billions, has made her the meanest (if not the most hated) face in this country’s entire bureaucracy—rightly or wrongly! Has the government she is a part of sent any big-time tax evader in the past to jail? Big business entities owe the BIR in the tens of billions, but has it pursued those cases with the same vigor and aggressiveness? Has there been any success in any of those cases?  We were not born yesterday. We know they are the major, major contributors to the campaign kitty of any presidential candidate and any internal revenue commissioner (who serves at the pleasure of any such winning president) knows it. Is it any wonder Henares is only going after ordinary taxpayers for crumbs? Shame should be on the BIR.

George del Mar is a lawyer and, just recently, also a doctor.