PAY now or face the consequences.
Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares issued this warning to former and current executives of government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCC) who have not been paying their proper taxes.
“They know who they are, they know the income they earned. They should look out for themselves,” Henares said in her warning. Former GOCC executives still have a chance to correct their income-tax returns (ITR) in previous years to avoid penalties, including a jail term, Henares said.
Once a case has been filed against a former official, however, they will no longer have the opportunity for settlement, she said.
She cited the tax-evasion cases filed against former officials of the Government Service Insurance System and the Social Security System, the government’s biggest pension funds.
Last week the Bureau of Internal Revenue filed tax-evasion cases against former GSIS trustees Mario Ramirez and Esperanza Ocampo after they allegedly failed to file their income-tax returns (ITR) in 2008 to 2010 and 2004 to 2010, respectively. The two are being assessed for a total of more than P30 million in taxes.
Aside from Ramirez and Ocampo, the agency also filed tax evasion cases against former Social Security System (SSS) officials Romulo Neri and Thelmo Cunanan. Neri’s case is already up for resolution, while Cunanan’s criminal case has been extinguished because of his death.
Neri and Cunanan allegedly did not declare in their ITR the stock options they got as representatives of the SSS board in some companies.
Henares said the cases filed against former officials of the SSS and the GSIS were the offshoot of a Senate investigation that looked into the excessive salaries and bonuses of government executives.
In addition to penalties and jail terms, monetary sanctions on tax evasion are high, doubling the initial tax due, especially in cases of fraud or willful negligence.
Aside from the SSS and the GSIS, other GOCCs with huge salaries and perks for their officials include the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) and Clark Development Corp.
The Senate investigations resulted in the Aquino administration’s effort to cap the salaries of executives in government-operated firms in February.
Meanwhile, government subsidies to GOCCs rose during the first four months of the year, mainly as a result of rice importation of the National Food Authority (NFA).
Data from the Bureau of Treasury showed that the government disbursed some P7.18 billion to several GOCCs during the period, or 62 percent higher than the P4.43 billion spent last year.
As of April, the highest recipient of the government’s financial assistance went to the NFA, the main importer of rice in the Philippines, with P2.5-billion subsidies, followed by the National Power Corp. with P2 billion.
The National Livelihood and Development Corp. received P881 million, making it the No.3 recipient during the first four months of the year.
The National Housing Authority and the BCDA received P574 million and P424 million, respectively.
For April, however, the administration tightened its expenses mainly affecting its financial aid to state agencies releasing only P110 million. This figure is almost 10 times lower than what the Arroyo administration spent during the same month last year at P1.11 billion.
State agencies that received the highest subsidies for April were the Philippine Forest Corp. with P50 million, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines with P48 million.
Government hospitals, such as the National Kidney and Transplant Institute, received P3 million, while the Lung Center of the Philippines and Philippine Heart Center received P2 million each.
The Philippine Health Insurance Corp., meanwhile, got P1 million from the government for the period.
