THE authority of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) commissioner to appoint tax-collection agents is near absolute, monetary authorities were told by their legal team.

Earlier, the bureau has tasked the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to collect a 2-percent excise tax from miners selling their gold to the various BSP gold-buying stations around the country.

Deputy BSP Governor Diwa Guinigundo told reporters they continue to resist the directive and has elevated the case before the Court of Tax Appeals.

“We have challenged in court our appointment as withholding agent for the BIR. But we were told that under the guidelines, the BIR commissioner has the power to appoint anyone as collection agent,” he said.

Guinigundo made it clear the BIR directive was an unpleasant chore the BSP would rather skip.

Given the choice, the BSP would rather that the bureau assign another government entity to the task, he said.

The central bank was hesitant to collect taxes because of the fear the gold miners would take their precious metal elsewhere once the 2- percent tax is in place. The central bank treats this relationship with the miners as an easy but precious access to gold.

Transactions with the small-scale gold miners account for 60 percent of all gold purchases done by the BSP buying stations, with a yearly volume of around 300,000 troy ounces.

The small-scale miners bring their gold to the BSP buying stations because of a tacit understanding that sellers would be given complete anonymity for every transaction.

Guinigundo earlier said the creation of transaction footprints traceable back to the miners would undermine that confidence and dry up the very lucrative source of the country’s gold metal holdings.

He also told reporters the miners might take their gold instead through the country’s back door, a euphemism for smuggling the precious metal to Hong Kong or Malaysia.

He said the guarantee of anonymity has helped the country occupy a slot among the five largest gold producers in the world. This has enabled the BSP to amass enough volume of gold equivalent to 10 percent of the country’s international reserves, or around $3 billion.

THE Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) is opening a P47-billion credit facility to the health sector to help upgrade the quality of health services in the country, especially the countryside.

AN opposition legislator sees no reason for Congress to investigate the establishment and operation of a fixed- income exchange and over-the-counter market for government securities even as he cleared the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) of alleged conspiracy on the issue of self-regulatory organizations (SRO).

THE authority of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) commissioner to appoint tax-collection agents is near absolute, monetary authorities were told by their legal team.

The peso fell to its weakest level in eight months Wednesday as the dollar gained on expectations that the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates, currency traders said.