CTA denies Jeane Napoles’ plea to review P40-M tax assessment case

The Court of Tax Appeals en banc has denied the appeal of Jeane Catherine Napoles, youngest daughter of alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet, to review her P40-million tax assessment case that was dismissed due to her camp’s failure to attend pre-trial proceedings.

In a 17-page resolution dated October 29, the CTA denied Napoles' petition for review for "utter lack of merit" and refused to allow her another opportunity to defend herself over her alleged deficient taxes for years 2011 and 2012.

This means the Bureau of Internal Revenue no longer has any legal impediment to pursue the civil case against Napoles and collect her tax liability.

The Second Division first scheduled the pre-trial conference for the case on September 29, 2016. Since then, however, the court said it had to reset the proceedings five times in a 140-day period. It said three of these resettings were the Napoles camp’s fault.

Among the reasons cited in the CTA decision are Napoles’ hospitalization during the January 19, 2017 pre-trial; and the tardiness of her lawyer Ian Encarnacion for the February 16 conference, when he arrived 20 minutes late for the 1:30 p.m. setting.

The BIR thus moved for the dismissal of the case pursuant to Section 5, Rule 18 of the Rules of Court, which forced Napoles to file the petition for review before the en banc.

Napoles argued that the Second Division was mistaken on the dismissal of her case, saying it gave no consideration for the reasons behind the resetting of the pre-trial conference.

She said the CTA division also disregarded the presence of Encarnacion's duly authorized representative on February 16, and that the representative only went to the wrong division and thought the setting was scheduled for 11 a.m. instead of 1:30 p.m.

However, the CTA en banc said both camps are mandated to attend the pre-trial conference and the absence of one party is enough basis to dismiss a case.

“Such obvious lack of foresight constitutes unacceptable complacency, negligence and utter disregard of the significance, purpose and function of the pre-trial,” it said.

The CTA said there is also no record of a representative for Encarnacion going to the tax court. If any, it said the person could easily verify the schedule of the proceedings at the division clerks of court.

“The picture that petitioner tried to paint is simply incredible,” the decision read.

“Apart from such self-serving and extremely unreal scenario, there is also nothing in the record that even suggests that a representative of petitioner’s counsel ever appeared before the clerks of court of either the Second or Third Divisions,” it added.

The CTA emphasized that Napoles was given enough leeway to attend to her case and cannot put the blame on the tax court.

The Third Division dismissed Napoles' bid to drop the tax evasion case against her last year. — BM, GMA News