Lucio Tan cleared in P25.6-B tax evasion raps

A Marikina court dismissed Friday the P25.6-billion tax evasion charges against tycoon Lucio Tan and 69 other co-accused. Judge Alex Ruiz of Marikina metropolitan trial court (MTC) branch 75 dismissed nine cases of tax evasion against Tan and his co-accused that were filed 13 years ago. Tan, along some Fortune Tobacco Company (FTC) officers, were all smiles at the Marikina courthouse after it was announced that the cases were dismissed. The acquittal came on the same day that the Sandiganbayan cleared of graft Imelda Marcos, widow of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Tan is alleged to have been a Marcos crony. "The court…finds that the acts and or omissions upon which the aforementioned criminal information are based on and are anchored do no exist," Ruiz said in his 34-page decision. The judge noted that there were no documents related to FTC taxes for the years 1990, 1991 and 1992 shows the name of accused Tan. It added that no other conclusion than that Tan is charged in these information as chairman of the boars of directors. Tan, 72, was ranked the wealthiest man in the Philippines by Forbes magazine in March 2006. Dummy corporations The cases stemmed from the case filed by Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in 1993 before the Department of Justice (DOJ) that Tan-owned FTC allegedly failed to pay the correct sum for its ad valorem, and income tax for the years 1990, 1991 and 1992 by employing "dummy" corporations and using some 2,000 fictitious or non existent individual buyers to evade the payment of correct taxes. The nine corporations were Carlsburg and Sons, Crimson Croker Distributors, Dagupan Combined Commodities, First Union Trading Corporation, Landmark Sales and Marketing, Mt. Matutum Marketing Corporation, Omar Ali Distributors, Townsman Commercial, and Oriel and Company. However, the court said there "no record was produced to show that FTC, Lucio Tan and their co-accused own as single share in their alleged dummies." The prosecution also failed to prove that FTC evaded the payment of correct taxes by using the nine dummy corporations and. "After evaluating the evidence against the accused on this point is short of moral certainty. There is no evidence that dividends were declared or received by the accused," the ruling said. "The evidence of the prosecution does not show that any of the alleged corporations or the so-called "ghost individuals gave any money or interest or anything of any kind to FTC and or its officers," the court said. Computations The court also stated that the BIR examiners, who investigated on the case, made use of sales invoices and from there began "extrapolating" the amount of tax, saying, "the gross sales, income tax, ad valorem tax and VAT of FTC for said years were also extrapolated without any hard evidence. The decision also said that prosecution failed to show the correct computations paid by FTC which were made by teams of BIR examiners. The court also granted the two demurrers to evidence earlier filed by defense lawyers Estelito Mendoza and Roberto Abad. The demurrers of evidence filed in July this year summarized that the prosecution failed to prove the case on the tax evasion case against all the accused. Richest Forbes Magazine currently listed Tan this year as the wealthiest individual in the Philippines. His net worth was pegged at $1.7 billion (P85 billion). Behind him are the families of shopping mall magnate Henry Sy ($1.5 billion) and Jaime Zobel de Ayala ($1.3 billion), whose interests include real estate, water and telecommunications. Tan owns flag carrier Philippine Airlines, Fortune Tobacco, the formerly state-owned Philippine National Bank (PNB) and a long list of other business firms. The billionaire has also trained his sights on gaining control of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 through his Asia Emerging Dragon Corp. Tan is ranked the 471st richest in the world. -GMANews.TV