Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, a retired Supreme Court (SC) justice, called on the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to file criminal charges against the Marcos family for “willfully” refusing to pay their tax debt of P203.819 billion on Thursday.
Carpio stated during a 1Sambayan virtual forum that “it is time” for the BIR to file the lawsuits because the Marcoses have not paid the billions of dollars in inheritance tax arrears for nearly 25 years.
“Almost a quarter of a century, they did not pay the tax. Ano pang hinihintay ng BIR? File-an na nila ng criminal case (What are they waiting for? File a criminal case). That’s the last thing that they can do. They should now file the criminal case,” he said.
He noted that the BIR has the legal authority to do so under the Tax Code.
“The Tax Code says it is the legal obligation of the administrator to pay the tax. Klaro ‘yan (that is clear) under the Tax Code and the revenue regulation, they are primarily liable to pay the estate tax because they are in control of the assets of the estate,” he said.
Carpio wants BIR to charge Marcos family over unpaid P203-B estate tax
According to Section 255 of the Tax Code, any person required to pay any tax liability under the Code or by rules and regulations promulgated thereunder who willfully fails to pay such tax shall, in addition to other penalties provided by law, be punished by a fine of not less than P10,000 and imprisonment of not less than one year but not more than ten years upon conviction thereof.
“If they willfully fail to pay such tax, they will be liable criminally up to 10 years imprisonment. In short, Marcos Jr. and Imelda Marcos can be charged criminally by the BIR and the DOJ under Section 255 of the Tax Code for willful refusal to pay the estate tax of the Marcos estate,” Carpio said.
“The refusal to pay the estate tax is willful because almost a quarter of a century has passed since the estate tax was declared final and executory by the Supreme Court and still Marcos Jr. and Imelda Marcos have refused to pay a single centavo of the estate tax which now has ballooned to P203 billion due to interest,” he added.
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