The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) on Thursday filed tax evasion complaints before the Department of Justice against four “ghost” corporations who were earlier caught in possession of thousands of fictitious receipts believed to be being sold to various business establishments and individual taxpayers resulting to an estimated P25.5 billion revenue losses for the government in the past three years.
BIR Commissioner Romeo D. Lumagui, Jr. said the agency is now hot on the trail of the individual taxpayers and businesses who were using the fictitious receipts and vowed to also file charges against them soon.
“We have a list of both buyers and sellers of these fictitious receipts. Our main goal here is to put these fraudulent activities into a halt with the high hopes of increasing voluntary tax compliance,” Lumagui said in an interview.
According to him, the fictitious receipts were being used by businesses as corresponding deductions in their expenses and value-added tax (VAT).
Lumagui said the said corporations have been operating for more than three years already.
The BIR expressed belief that other groups are operating as a syndicate that are engaged in selling fictitious receipts.
“This illegal scheme has been in place for a long time already and there are other groups possibly involved. We will also be launching a ‘Run After Fake Transactions’ in order to stop the selling of fictitious receipts or these ghost corporations,” Lumagui said.
The case against these four corporations stemmed from the December 2022 raid conducted by Lumagui himself together with the bureau’s legal and revenue officers and himself at a condominium unit in Quezon City.
The operation led to the seizure of thousands of fictitious receipts. The BIR official stressed that further investigation showed that the said corporations do not have any legitimate business activity and that they were established only for the purpose of selling fictitious sales invoices and/or receipts to their buyers for the latter’s claim of false and anomalous purchases.
“As a result of these companies’ fraudulent tax schemes, the government is losing an estimated total deficiency income tax amounting to P 17.63 billion and total deficiency value added tax amounting to P 7.91 billion, for taxable years 2019-2021, inclusive of surcharges and interests,” Lumagui lamented.
Among those charged were the Buildforce Trading Inc., Crazykitchen Foodtrade Corp., Decarich Supertrade Inc., and Redington Corporation and their officers.
They will undergo preliminary investigation for violation of Sections 254 (Attempt to Evade or Defeat Tax), 255 (Failure to File Return, Supply Correct and Accurate Information, Pay Tax Withhold and Remit Tax and Refund Excess Taxes Withheld on Compensation), and 267 (Declaration Under Penalties of Injury) of the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997 (Tax Code).
Under Section 254, an attempt to evade or defeat tax is punishable by a fine not less than P30,000 but not more than P100,000 and imprisonment of not less than two years but not more than four years.
It further states that the “conviction or acquittal obtained under this Section shall not be a bar to the filing of a civil suit for the collection of taxes.”
Meanwhile, violation of Section 255 is punishable by a fine of not less than P10,000 and suffer imprisonment of not less than one year but not more than 10 years.
Section 267, on the other hand, states : “Any declaration, return and other statement required under this Code, shall, in lieu of an oath, contain a written statement that they are made under the penalties of perjury.
Any person who willfully files a declaration, return or statement containing information which is not true and correct as to every material matter shall, upon conviction, be subject to the penalties prescribed for perjury under the Revised Penal Code. “