DOF: BIR collected P548M from Jan.-Sept. over padlocked establishments

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has collected a total of P547.9 million in taxes during the first nine months of the year from 178 commercial establishments  that were padlocked earlier for failing to either register or pay the correct amount of taxes, the Department of Finance (DOF) said Wednesday.

In a statement, the DOF said the BIR’s operations conducted against the 178 padlocked establishments were pursuant to Revenue Memorandum Order (RMO) No. 3-2009, otherwise known as the “Oplan Kandado Program.”

Citing a BIR report to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, the DOF said the BIR has also filed 14 cases before the Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) in a bid to collect some P338 million in tax liabilities from various respondents.

Meanwhile, 72 complaints involving an estimated P3.4 billion in tax liabilities that the bureau has filed with the Department of Justice (DOJ) are now under preliminary investigation, according to BIR Deputy Commissioner Arnel Guballa.

Last year, the BIR collected a total of P1.92 billion under its “Oplan Kandado” program as a result of the temporary closure of 743 establishments for various violations of the National Internal Revenue Code.

The taxman’s performance under the program in 2019 was a 218.88% improvement over its 233 closures of establishments reported in 2018 and a 140.76% increase in collections amounting to P799.47 million during the same year.

Also in 2019, the BIR  filed a total of 347 complaints involving tax liabilities estimated to be worth P24.02 billion combined with either the DOJ or Court of Tax Appeals “as part of the Duterte administration’s all-out campaign against tax evaders.”

Under its Run After Tax Evaders (RATE) program, 309 cases for preliminary investigation were filed by the bureau with the DOJ last year for tax liabilities of various individuals and corporations estimated at P19.06 billion combined.

This an improvement of 56.85% over the 197 cases filed by the BIR in 2018 involving some P15 billion-worth of tax liabilities.

In the CTA, the BIR has filed 38 cases for tax liabilities worth P4.94 billion combined, or more than triple the 12 cases filed before the tax appeals court in 2018.

The cases filed with the CTA involving close to P5 billion in tax liabilities represent a 480.67% increase over the estimated P851.57 million in taxes that the BIR had hoped to collect in 2018 through litigation, the DOF said. — RSJ, GMA News