Finance department appeals court's ruling on Bakbak closure

OFFICIALS of the Secretary of Finance and the Bureau of Internal Revenue submitted a motion for reconsideration after the Regional Trial Court declared an order closing two branches of Bakbak restaurant unconstitutional.

In the said motion, they pointed out that Regional Trial Court Branch 14 Judge George Omelio erred in his decision as there are tax laws that have to be taken into consideration.

Click here for Election 2010 updates

They said the assertions about the alleged transactions made by Federico Barco, the father of petitioner Roselle, who is not a party nor made a witness to the case, and some BIR personnel, are not only self-serving but are irrelevant to the case.

Section 115 provides the Power of the Commissioner to suspend the business operations of a taxpayer for non-compliance with VAT requirements and Section 228 contains the procedure for Protesting of Assessment, a remedy available to a taxpayer who has received and disagrees with the contents of his Notice of Assessment.

They claimed there is no assessment to speak of since an assessment is a necessary result of an audit and no audit was conducted yet on petitioner's restaurant business.

Omelio earlier declared the memorandum orders against closing the restaurants for non-payment of right taxes unconstitutional last February 2.