FINANCE Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III revealed he was “pissed off” when he was told that some Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) personnel are “harassing” people and claiming that they are raising money for his “pabaon,” largely prompting him to issue the suspension order on the creation of special audit task forces.
In an interview with Finance reporters, Dominguez said the Megaworld-BIR issue played a part in his decision to suspend the creation of special audit task forces but he said this was not the main reason.
“Somebody called me last week and told me that there are BIR people going around town harassing people because daw they were raising money for my pabaon. I really got pissed off because that is absolutely not true. You know what that means? Going around saying, ‘Kasi bigay namin kay Dominguez ito kasi aalis na.’ Putang ina, talagang nagalit ako. And then this thing came up,” he said.
The Department of Finance (DOF) last Saturday announced that the revenue special orders and operations memoranda creating special audit task forces were suspended to avoid confusion among taxpayers.
This came days after the BIR released a media advisory announcing that it would supposedly issue a closure order against Megaworld Corporation, but later in the day the taxman advised the media that the event was “held in abeyance until further notice” as Megaworld vowed full cooperation in complying with the taxman’s requirements.
However, Dominguez admitted he still does not know the names of the BIR personnel involved in the alleged “pabaon” scheme but people are calling him about it.
Moreover, he also claimed that the issuance of the closure order against the publicly-listed property developer never reached his desk.
He slammed the BIR for threatening to close Megaworld Corp. “without any basis,” adding that the agency’s move affected the market needlessly.
“There is no finding that they did not pay the tax. There is none. By doing that to a publicly-listed company, it affected the price of the shares. The price of the shares affects the public who owns shares there. So why will you affect people when, in fact, there is no finding yet? You are affecting the shareholders,” he said.
He lamented that even pension funds — Social Security System (SSS) and Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) — lost P37 million as their Megaworld shares took a hit last week when the issue broke out.
“And you know who are among the shareholders? SSS and GSIS. You are affecting the share of stocks of those people, of those institutions … I don’t know who else have shares there—I don’t know the total list—but why would you affect the value of the wealth of the people when there is nothing really yet to accuse them of?” he asked aloud.
It would have been better, he said, if the jurisdictional issues on who gets to audit the company were settled within BIR first.
“They asked me before and I signed it, who is going to be audited where, if this one is attached to the Large Taxpayers [Service]. Let them do their job. Before you go out, you settle the jurisdictional issues first. If not, the BIR is looking kind of stupid, doesn’t it?” he said.
Despite these remarks, Dominguez said the BIR Large Taxpayers Service will still be pushing through with its investigation of the issues on the sale of Taguig properties being developed by Megaworld.
“Of course, we have to do it,” he said.
Guballa: No ‘pabaon’
Sought by this paper for comment regarding Dominguez’s statement that there are some BIR personnel that are raising money supposedly for the Cabinet official’s “pabaon,” BIR Deputy Commissioner Arnel Guballa denied this claim.
“This is completely not true as far BIR is concerned. To validate better to ask Taxpayers [Service] so we can address this issue,” Guballa told BusinessMirror in a message.
He also said this was the first time that he heard of this narrative.
BusinessMirror also tried to get Guballa’s response to Dominguez’s claim that he was unaware of the issuance of the closure order against Megaworld, but he had yet to respond as of press time. This paper also sought the side of BIR Officer-in-Charge Deputy Commissioner Marissa Cabreros but she has also yet to respond.
Image credits: AP/Wong Maye-E