The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) collected P547.9 million worth of taxes in the first nine months from commercial establishments tagged as tax code violators.
In a statement from the Department of Finance (DOF) on Wednesday, BIR noted that 178 commercial establishments were padlocked in January to September for failing to register or pay the correct amount of taxes.
The bureau also lodged 14 cases before the Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) to collect around P338 million in tax liabilities from different respondents.
BIR Deputy Commissioner Arnel SD. Guballa added that the 72 complaints the bureau filed before the Department of Justice (DOJ) are now undergoing preliminary investigation. The cases involve a combined estimate of P3.4 billion in tax liabilities.
Guballa said the nine-month operations were in accordance with the Revenue Memorandum Order (RMO) 3-2009, or the “Oplan Kandado” Program. This BIR initiative is aimed at deterring violations in the National Internal Revenue Code.
In 2019, the program resulted in collection of P1.92 billion from temporary closure of 743 establishments which violated various tax regulations.
The BIR’s performance last year under the Oplan Kandado program showed 140.76-percent increase from tax collections of P799.47 million in 2018 and a 218.88-percent surge from 233 closures of establishment in the same period.
Last year, the BIR also filed 347 complaints before either the DOJ or CTA as it ramps up campaign against tax evaders. The amount involved in the cases is around P24.02 billion in total.
It also lodged 209 cases for preliminary investigations before the DOJ in 2019 for tax liabilities from various individuals and corporations amounting to P19.06 billion in total under BIR’s Run After Tax Evaders program. This was an improvement when it filed 197 cases involving P15 billion worth of tax liabilities in 2018.
BIR, meanwhile, filed 38 cases in CTA last year, which is more than triple the 12 cases it lodged in the court in 2018. Meanwhile, the total amount of tax liabilities arising from the cases last year was P4.94 billion, markedly higher than the estimate of P851.57 million in 2018.