BIR should catch big-time tax cheats

Something funny caught our attention in the Sept. 18 issue of the Inquirer: The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) owes the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) some P3.4 billion in back taxes! Charity in the PCSO really “begins at home.”

Former PCSO officials generously distributed oodles of public funds among themselves and their cronies, but did not pay what was due to the government? This is funny because it’s a case where the government cheated itself.

This is not the first time this happened. In the past, similar instances of cheating by other government offices/agencies or local government units have been exposed.

Now comes the BIR shaking down professionals and other individual taxpayers in an effort to raise (read: extort) more funds for the government. It hopes to earn a few hundred million pesos in “compromise payments” by threatening them with tax evasion cases. Who is the BIR kidding?

Here is one true-to-life scenario: An ordinary taxpayer was once sent a notice of assessment in the amount of P50,000+. The BIR was willing to waive the penalties provided the whole amount would be paid in one go—take it or leave it. The beleaguered taxpayer had no choice but to pay.

Compare this with the back taxes owed at just about the same time by a huge international banking institution doing business in this country. Its tax liability was said to have amounted to almost P1 billion. But then a “compromise” was struck and the BIR settled for a paltry P60 million! That was not even 10 percent of the assessed tax deficiency.

These two cases reminded me of an English adage about being penny-wise but pound-foolish.

What else can one say? This latest BIR “initiative” of harassing individual taxpayers while it goes spooning around with corporate taxpayers with humongous tax liabilities (which if diligently pursued and collected would more than cover any amount it hopes to collect from the smaller taxpayers) is flat-out stupid.

Indeed, with so much tax delinquency on the part of giant businesses in this country, the BIR has got its job cut out for it. But instead of directing its efforts toward collecting a much greater bounty, the BIR chooses to come down hard on lesser mortals to gather crumbs. It seems the BIR’s lawyers are too skittish to confront the big-time lawyers retained by big-ticket corporations. Is the government hiring cockamamie lawyers?

If the BIR can prove it really means business by charging big-time tax evaders, smaller taxpayers will fall in line to do their share in nation-building. Common sense lang po ’yan.  That was the example set by the Al Capone tax cases! Tax collection in the United States has improved a lot since then.

By the way, has the BIR been able to collect millions in taxes from Rep. Ignacio Arroyo for his huge “Jose Pidal” stash?

—STEVE Y. VESPERA,

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