Lacson: BIR might not collect P203 billion estate taxes if Marcos Jr. wins presidency

Presidential candidate and Senator Panfilo Lacson on Tuesday warned the public that the government might not collect P203 billion worth of estate taxes should Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. win the presidency.

In an interview on Cabanatuan TV, Lacson reiterated the need for the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to collect the taxes from the Marcoses instead of imposing new taxes against Filipinos.

“Ang delikado ngayon dito, ito hypothetical, kung sakaling manalo, ‘yung one of the heirs, sa eleksyon, sa tingin niyo masisingil ng BIR ‘yon? Baka hindi ‘di ba? Mahirap singilin at least sa loob ng anim na taon baka hindi masingil. ‘Yan ang problema diyan,” Lacson said when asked about the issue.

(What’s tricky here is, hypothetically, if one of the heirs wins the election, do you think BIR could demand the payment of their tax dues? They might not, right? It would be difficult for them to collect the payment at least within the next six years. That’s the problem there.)

“So dapat ang BIR sa halip na mag-tax nang mag-tax, nang mag-tax sa atin, singilin yong mga hindi nagbabayad ng tax, P203 billion pesos, isipin niyo. Ang laki,” he added.

(So the BIR should demand for the payment of the tax debt instead of imposing new taxes. They should collect the dues of those who are not paying their taxes. That’s P203 billion. If you think about it, the amount is very huge.)

The BIR is under the Department of Finance which is part of the Executive Branch of government.

The lawmaker mentioned anew that the government was only able to collect P101 billion from the new tax measures imposed under the Duterte administration, namely the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law and the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Law.

“Alam niyo magkano lang na-realize sa katakot-takot na tax packages, tax measures, P101 billion. Eh yan nand’yan na ang P203 billion, sisingilin niyo na lamang, bakit hindi nasisingil ng BIR?” he asked.

(Do you know that the government has realized just P101 billion from the tax packages that we have passed. The P203 billion is already there, they just need to collect it. Why is the BIR not collecting these tax debts?)

It was presidential candidate and Manila Mayor Isko Moreno who first floated the issue of the uncollected estate taxes from the Marcoses as he vowed to implement the 1997 Supreme Court decision in which the high court denied the petition filed by Marcos Jr. to reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.

In 1994, the CA ruled that ”the deficiency assessments for estate and income tax made upon the petitioner and the estate of the deceased President Marcos have already become final and unappealable, and may thus be enforced by the summary remedy of levying upon the properties” of the late dictator.

The camp of Marcos Jr. has said that properties involved in the estate tax were still under litigation.

They added that the Presidential Commission on Good Government and the Bureau of Internal Revenue already had an agreement as regards its collection.

But this was rebuffed by the PCGG and the BIR.

The PCGG said the issue had been ruled upon by the Supreme Court with finality while the BIR said it already sent collection notices to the family. — DVM, GMA News