THE Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) is again hounding the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) for money, claiming the 16-year-old new central bank owes it back taxes worth P1.5 billion for taxable year 2005 alone.

The BIR claim is actually worth several billion pesos, but BSP officials said they are now in talks with BIR Commissioner Sixto Esquivias IV to resolve a liability incurred in the course of stabilizing the economy.

“We are already in discussion with the BIR about this. Again, we will argue that the taxes they levied against us were for the financial and monetary stability of the entire economy,” Deputy BSP Governor Diwa Guinigundo said on Thursday.

He would not reveal the exact amount, but Esquivias, whose collection performance in the first five months lagged from a year ago by P20.5 billion, wants the BSP to exercise good corporate citizenship and pay up.

He estimated the BSP must have paid between P15 billion and P16 billion in various taxes to the government the past 10 years alone.

Guinigundo said the BSP pays all kinds of taxes except those imposed on documentary stamp tax, or DST.

The BSP’s tax-exempt status incorporated in its 1993 charter expired five years later, but the central bank has since contributed more than P100 billion to the national coffers in the form of dividend payments to the national government, as well as tax and interest rebates. This, Guinigundo noted, on the strength of its capital base of only P10 billion.

He said other central banks have not been taxed by their governments, like the Bank Negara Malaysia, whose board has the option not to give a single ringgit if it so chooses.

There are draft proposals in both houses of Congress granting the BSP immunity from all kinds of taxes but these have not moved an inch since their filing many years since.

Guinigundo also said the proposed BSP capital infusion requiring the creation of a special-purpose vehicle as issuing entity for a planned bond sale had been thrown out as impractical for purposes of generating new money for the BSP.

How the planned bond sale will proceed from this point, and who actually gets to issue the sovereign IOUs, is the subject of continuing discussions with government.

“We’re still working out the details but basically the underlying instrument is still the MYOA,” Guinigundo said, referring to the multi-year obligational authority which is essentially a line that guarantees each government agency a direct link to the nation’s budget.

The new capital-raising mechanism for the BSP effectively becomes an account receivable based on the MYOA that covers the additional P40 billion that the BSP needs as capital, Guinigundo explained.

The new mechanism needs the approval of the BSP’s policy-making Monetary Board on top of a separate legal opinion to be issued by the Department of Justice on the matter, he added.

It was important that government honor its commitment as sole stakeholder in the BSP to give it the full P50-billion capital infusion prescribed in its charter, Guinigundo said.

A fully capitalized central bank enhances the confidence not just of the country’s creditors and the credit watchers, but more important, the confidence of the investing community as well, he said.