AN ONGOING investigation by the Bureau of Internal Revenue reveals “discrepancies” in the tax records of Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, BIR deputy commissioner Arnel Guballa told the House committee on justice’s impeachment hearing on Monday.
But Guballa refused to reveal to lawmakers the details of its investigation on the matter, citing possible violations of “confidentiality rule” as provided under Section 270 of the National Internal Revenue Code.
“As of now we have made some observations regarding the declarations and there are some discrepancies,” Guballa said.
This developed as the House justice panel, chaired by Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali, ordered the BIR to produce a copy of its report on the tax payment records of Sereno.
But the camp of Sereno debunked the allegation she did not pay taxes for her over P30-million income from the arbitration case against the Philippine International Air Terminals Co. Inc.
Sereno’s spokesperson, lawyer Jojo Lacanilao, stressed the chief magistrate had paid her taxes correctly and was confident this could be proven in any investigation.
“Chief Justice Sereno faithfully paid the tax due to her earnings covering the years 2004 to 2009 when she was the co-legal counsel of the Republic of the Philippines in the PIATCO case,” he said in a statement.
According to Lacanilao, it was actually easy to verify that Sereno had “accurately and properly” declared all her earnings or attorney’s fees from the PIATCO case, where she served as counsel for the government.
Lacanilao said records from the BIR would prove that she paid all her taxes totaling P8.67 million.
Misamis Occidental Rep. Henry Oaminal, the committee vice chairperson, moved for the issuance of a subpoena duces tecum and subpoena ad testificandum to secure the findings of the BIR investigation.
“We have to issue a subpoena duces tecum so that the BIR also [would] have some document to immediately consult their legal adviser, which is the Office of the Solicitor General, and that would trigger the immediate procurement of the documents,” Oaminal said.
The committee issued a subpoena to the BIR after Guballa invoked Section 270 of the revenue code which provides that “BIR personnel cannot divulge information collected from taxpayers concerning the latter’s business, income or estate, as well as the secrets, operation, style or work, or apparatus of any manufacturer or producer, or confidential information regarding the business of any taxpayer.”
But the law also provides exceptions such as a waiver to be executed by the person whose records are under scrutiny.
In his refusal to provide details of its report on Sereno’s tax records, Guballa , a lawyer, said: “We are not obstructing the furnishing of the information…We are just enforcing the law, we do not have authority to interpret the law.”
“We want to be on the safe side because the law has penal provisions and (the) Bureau might be susceptible to charges,” he added.
The House justice committee earlier directed Guballa to conduct an investigation on Sereno’s tax payments to find out if the chief magistrate had paid the the right taxes in connection with her alleged P37-million earnings as as government counsel in the arbitration proceedings against the Philippine International Air Terminals Co. Inc.
Lacanilao questioned the insinuations by some members of the House committee on justice on the supposed “discrepancies” observed by the BIR as regards Sereno’s tax records.
He pointed out that while the Chief Justice could easily explain those discrepancies, it was quite alarming that some lawmakers were already “jumping into premature conclusions” that tend to violate her right to due process.
“They already have conclusion when the investigation isn’t done yet. This is again alarming because there’s again no due process accorded to the Chief Justice,” Lacanilao lamented.
Lacanilao also said that the tax probe on Sereno was a mere afterthought because it was being done only after the matter was brought up in the impeachment proceedings before the House panel.
“During the tax years and the years after that, not once did the BIR issued (sic) a letter of authority or a letter of notice to the Chief Justice to open her books for possible discrepancy or any question regarding her tax payment for that matter,” he explained.
According to Lacanilao, it was obvious that the justice panel was using all resources at its disposal to muddle the impeachment issue.
“Let it be known to the public that the tax filing of the Chief Justice is not part of the impeachment complaint filed by Atty. Larry Gadon,” he said.
“This is yet another desperate attempt to prop up the baseless allegations because the justice committee knows very well that they don’t have a solid case to warrant the Chief Justice’s removal from office,” he added.