“Even in the wireless industry where transactions are mostly consummated electronically, it is not hard to catch tax cheats” is the stern warning given by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) when it filed today with the Department of Justice a complaint for tax evasion against a telecommunications trader for wilful attempt to evade or defeat tax, deliberate failure to file Income and Value Added Tax Returns for taxable years 2007 and 2008, and failure to register as VAT taxpayer in violation of Sections 254, 255 and 275, in relation to Section 236 (G) (1) of the Tax Code, as amended.
Charged was Danilo Cortez Robles of Dona Loleng Village, Urdaneta City, Pangasinan. Robles is a Filipino Citizen engaged in the business of buying and selling handsets, simpacks, eLoad and prepaid cards under the trade name Robles Merchandising. He registered with the BIR as a taxpayer subject to percentage tax.
Investigation conducted by the BIR revealed that Robles substantially under-declared his income and purchases for the first quarter of 2007 and deliberately failed to report altogether the rest of his income for 2007 and his entire income for 2008.
Based on certifications issued by both Pilipino Telephone Corporation (PTC) and SMART Communications, Inc. (SMART), Robles made purchases from both entities amounting to P332, 437,797.87 and P164, 149,394.30 for taxable years 2007 and 2008, respectively. As a Filipino Citizen deriving income within the Philippines, he is subject to income tax and mandated to declare all his income for each taxable year in his tax returns and pay the corresponding taxes due thereon.
Records of the BIR show that Robles has a “stop-filer” status as he only filed his first quarter income tax return (ITR) for 2007 where he declared a meager income of only P680, 000.00 and failed to file his ITRs for the rest of 2007 and the entire 2008 despite the continuation of his business operations. Robles also did not file his ending inventory lists for the said two year period.
With the failure of Robles to report his purchases from PTC and SMART and to file his ending inventory lists with the BIR, the subject purchases necessarily were all sold and disposed of resulting in undeclared sales of P357, 229,527.05 and P176, 390,924.46 for 2007 and 2008, respectively.
The scheme of Robles of evading his tax obligations became even more evident when he failed to register as VAT taxpayer as required by the Tax Code considering that based on his initial purchases in January 2007 of P21, 104,464.29 and the nature of his business operations, there exist reasonable grounds to believe that his gross sales in 2007 will exceed the P1.5 million threshold for VAT registration.
The estimated aggregate tax liability of Robles for 2007 and 2008 is P162, 710,723.34, inclusive of surcharges and interests, broken down into Income Tax of P23, 897,474.84 (2007 – P16, 551,524.51; 2008 – P7, 345,950.33) and VAT of P138, 813,248.50 (2007 – P94, 984,230.40; 2008 – P43, 829,018.10).
The case against Danilo Cortez Robles is the 48th filed under the Run After Tax Evaders (RATE) program of the BIR under the leadership of Commissioner Kim S. Jacinto-Henares. It is likewise the first RATE case of Revenue Region No. 1, Calasiao, Pangasinan.
