THE government was able to collect over half a billion in taxes from commercial establishments that were padlocked by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) this year.
The BIR said in a statement it collected P582.5 million in taxes from 196 commercial establishments shuttered by the government for failure to register or pay the correct taxes between January and November this year.
BIR Deputy Commissioner Arnel SD. Guballa said the bureau collected an additional P34.5 million in taxes in the last quarter from 18 more commercial establishments it padlocked under the Oplan Kandado program.
“From the previous amount of P547.9 million collected under this program from 178 establishments that were closed down in the first nine months of 2020, the total amount has increased to P582.5 million as of November this year,” the BIR said in a statement.
Guballa said the operations conducted against the 196 padlocked establishments were pursuant to Revenue Memorandum Order (RMO) 3-2009, otherwise known as the Oplan Kandado Program.
Guballa also said in a report to the DOF that over a hundred of complaints filed before the Department of Justice (DOJ) are now under preliminary investigation.
BIR data showed these 103 complaints filed before the DOJ involved an estimated P4.96 billion in tax
liabilities.
Last year, the BIR collected a total of P1.92 billion under its “Oplan Kandado” (padlock plan) as a result of the temporary closure of 743 establishments for various violations of the National Internal Revenue Code.
The BIR’s performance under the Oplan Kandado in 2019 was a 218.88-percent improvement over its 233 closures of establishments reported in 2018 and a 140.76-percent increase in collections amounting to P799.47 million during that year.