SC stops tax court from collecting P3.2-B bond from Pacquiao

(UPDATED 8:38 p.m.) The Supreme Court has issued a temporary restraining order on the Court of Tax Appeals' ruling requiring boxing champ Manny Pacquiao and his wife Jinkee to post a P3.2-billion cash bond or a P4.9-billion surety bond in connection with the P3.2-billion tax evasion case filed against them.

The Pacquiaos earlier asked the SC for the reprieve of issuing a TRO on the CTA and the BIR's actions against them due to the multibillion-peso tax case.

The tax evasion trial will, however, continue after the SC Third Division said the CTA "is enjoined to proceed with CTA Case No. 8683 with deliberate dispatch."

"Respondent Commissioner of Internal Revenue [Kim Jacinto-Henares], her agents, representatives, or persons acting in her place or stead, are hereby enjoined from issuing, executing, enforcing, implementing, or otherwise giving effect to any warrant of distraint and/or levy, warrants of garnishment, and notice of tax lien, and from attempting to collect any tax on the basis of the deficiency income tax and value added tax assessments against petitioners for the years 2008 and 2009, as well as any increments thereon, and from doing any and all acts relative thereto," the SC's Third Division said in a ruling.

 

The high tribunal, "without necessarily giving due course" to the Pacquiao couple's petition, also required the CTA First Division and the BIR to submit their respective comments on the petition within 10 days.

 

The SC division also said, in the notice of resolution signed by division clerk of court Wilfredo Lapitan, that the TRO "extends indedinitely and until further orders from the court."