Noy tax speech before Tsinoys a gentle reminder – Palace
MANILA, Philippines - While President Aquino found it unnerving and shocking that a number of Filipino-Chinese businessmen belonging to the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc. were not paying correct taxes, a Palace official described the chief executive’s move in calling FFCCCI’s attention on the matter as a mere “gentle reminder.”
The President made the call during FFCCCI’s biennial convention Friday night at the Mall of Asia, where he was invited as guest of honor and speaker.
Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte at first said the government, particularly the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), was not being soft on these businessmen even as the figures used by the President were culled from 2011 to 2013 records.
Valte, however, denied over radio dzRB yesterday that the government was quick to file charges against Filipinos but slow on Chinese businessmen like those from the FFCCCI.
“If you can see, among all those charged by (BIR) Commissioner (Kim) Henares, there is no discrimination. There is no such thing as being selective, as the cases with strong evidence are the only ones filed by Commissioner Henares before the DOJ,” Valte said.
She said the President took the opportunity to discuss the matter before a big audience, but it did not mean the government was acting only just now.
Asked if charges would be filed against these alleged tax cheats, Valte said there are processes to be followed.
“The President’s gentle reminder does not mean the BIR is not doing its job. We are going to review the cases filed by the BIR before the Department of Justice and those under litigation, and we can see there is no discrimination in the filing of those cases. Those were purely based on evidence,” she said in Filipino.
The Palace official refused to comment if the Filipino-Chinese businessmen were donors for the Team PNoy campaign. She said the BIR would check on all reports about people not paying taxes, including those who do not issue receipts.
In his speech, the President said he wanted to bring up a “more sensitive topic” from the report of Henares that was, to say the least, “a bit unnerving.”
“These are the facts as we understand them. Based on your own 2011 to 2013 directory, I understand that your federation includes 207 firms and organizations as members. Only 105 of these have a tax identification number. Of these 105 firms, only 54 filed tax returns. To make matters worse, 38 firms and organizations actually filed returns with zero tax due. This means that only 16 out of the 207 ‑ or only around eight percent - of your member-organizations paid taxes,” Aquino said.
The President added that of 552 FFCCCI individual members, only 424 have tax identification numbers, and only 185 of these members with TINs ‑ or almost 44 percent ‑ filed income tax returns.
“Of those that filed tax returns, 14 filed returns with zero tax due. What this means is 354 out of 552 members ‑ or 64 percent of you ‑ did not pay taxes for the same reasons: no TIN, no tax due, or nothing filed at all,” the President said, adding among those who filed and paid income taxes, a lot “paid less than P100,000” while there were some who paid less than P1,000 in taxes.
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