Richard Gutierrez asks DOJ to dismiss falsification, perjury raps

Actor Richard Gutierrez has asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to dismiss the criminal complaint filed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) stemming from allegations that he falsified documents and perjured affidavits in his P38.57-million tax evasion case.

Gutierrez went to the DOJ on Thursday to personally subscribe to his counter affidavit in the complaint pending before Assistant State Prosecutor Christine Perolino.

He is accused of submitting a falsified annual income tax return for 2012 and quarterly value added tax returns for second, third and fourth quarter of 2012 in violation of Article 172 of the Revised Penal Code in relation to Article 171 of the same law.

The BIR also said the attached returns were deceptively made to appear to have been stamped received by Revenue District Office No. 42- San Juan City. The agency said revenue officer Renato Agana denied having received the tax returns of Gutierrez-owned R Gutz Production Corp.

The actor also allegedly violated Article 183 of the Revised Penal Code for submitting perjured affidavits during the preliminary investigation hearing of his tax evasion case on July 18.

In his defense, Gutierrez identified accountant Teresita Dabu-Lapid as the one who filed and paid the tax for R Gutz.

"It was the accountant and not me who went to BIR to file the corporation's tax returns. It is the usual practice not only of celebrities but also a lot of taxpayers. Thus I did not know who personally received them," he said.

"At any rate, it was a certified public accountant who prepared and filed the aforesaid returns. It is out of human nature that a licensed accountant will make a fake stamp and forged a signature of a revenue officer when it is her work to prepare, file and pay taxes for a living. Hence, said returns could never be falsified!"

Gutierrez said the BIR should consider the possibility that another BIR staff may have received the tax returns.

"It is of public knowledge that during [the] April 15 filing of the annual income tax, BIR is flooded by taxpayers and it is impossible that it was just RO Agana who examined and received all the tax returns," he said.

“That in the very remote instance that those returns are falsified, there is no probability that I am the one who is the author of the alleged forged signature and fake stamp because I was not the one who prepared and filed them,” the counter-affidavit read.

The actor said he could not be liable for perjury, claiming he did not make "any assertion of falsehood" in his submissions to the DOJ.

"That assuming without admitting that this assertion is false, mere assertion of falsehood is not enough to indict a person for perjury. The assertion of falsehood must be willful and deliberate, which implies malice and evil intent in asserting falsehood," the counter-affidavit stated.

Another hearing was set for October 18 for the BIR to submit its response to Gutierrez's defense. — RSJ, GMA News