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Monday, August 29, 2005
Finance, revenue chiefs back tax officer
By Antonio M. Ajero and Raquel C. Bagnol
DAVAO CITY -- The finance and internal revenue chiefs are fully supporting Davao Revenue District Officer Evelyn Sardido against harassment cases filed by professionals accused of shortchanging the government in the payment of taxes.
Finance Secretary Margarito Teves and Internal Revenue Commissioner Jose Mario Buñag, who arrived in Davao City Saturday, said Sardido did the right thing in demanding that private practitioners pay the appropriate taxes.
Teves and Buñag were separately asked by Davao reporters to comment on the Ombudsman case against Sardido filed by 34 medical practitioners whom she earlier asked to correct their tax deficiencies.
In a press conference at Paternos' Restaurant, Teves said the payment of appropriate taxes results in more revenues for the government.
"Fixed income taxpayers are the ones who are paying the most taxes. Sardido's move is just right and I hope there are many more like her," Teves said.
He added that as tax collection is the lifeblood of the government, more efforts should be exerted in the campaign to collect what is due to the government.
Buñag said Sardido was just doing her job in collecting the correct amount of taxes from the physicians whom he classified as among "the hard to tax sector" together with lawyers and other professionals who usually don't issue receipts for the professionals fees that they collect.
"We are giving our all-out support to the region (Bureau of Internal Revenue office), particularly to Ms. Sardido, because she is just doing her job. That is part of the program of the BIR," Buñag said.
He said the BIR is also encountering a similar kind of resistance from professionals in other areas, adding "we will file criminal cases of tax evasion if all the chances that we give them to settle will be ignored."
Buñag and Secretary Teves, who is also here to attend gatherings of the Land Bank of the Philippines of which he is chairman of the board and of the Bureau of Local Government Finance, were briefed on the performance of the BIR region headed by Regional Director Linda Omila-Yap.
While here, Buñag said he would also discuss with Yap and Sardido an incentive package for the benefit of BIR personnel.
Earlier, the 34 doctors filed charges against Sardido for alleged acts of oppression. They claimed she did not have the requisite letter from the BIR commissioner to ask them to correct their tax deficiencies.
Through her counsel, lawyer Ramon Edison Batacan, Sardido countered that the complaint is not only baseless but was designed to harass the BIR from pursuing its tax drive against erring medical practitioners.
In the 23-page motion to dismiss that she filed with the assistance of her counsel, she said she sent letter notices to the doctors attaching computations of undeclared revenues and deficiency taxes based on their 2003 income tax returns with the approval of BIR Director Linda Omila-Yap.
Batacan said that Sardido could not have committed acts of oppression against the doctors since her sending out notices of tax deficiency to them was pursuant to the exercise of her official functions under the law.
In addition, Sardido said dialogs were conducted to enlighten the medical practitioners on how the unreported income was discovered.
She said she conferred with Yap and BIR Commissioner Guillermo Parayno Jr. about the matter.
She also added that of the 256 medical practitioners in Davao City, 173 amended their tax returns and paid the corresponding taxes, which totaled to P20,573,985.93. (Sun.Star Davao/Sunnex)
(August 29, 2005 issue)
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