According to presidential candidate and Senator Panfilo Lacson, the Marcos heirs’ P203 billion inheritance tax liability might balloon to a trillion dollars if it goes unpaid.
The legislator made the comment while pointing out that the Supreme Court’s decision on Marcos’ multibillion-dollar estate taxes was final and executory in 1999.
“Way to go…Nag-rule na ang Supreme Court (The Supreme Court has already ruled on the case). Nobody can claim otherwise with so many pronouncements to the contrary,” Lacson told reporters.
“Kaya dapat lang talagang singilin. Kung hindi lalaki pa ng lalaki lang. Baka umabot ng isang trilyon ‘yan. Remember it started with P23 billion ‘yun ang basic na estate tax na dapat bayaran. In the course of time nagkaroon ng surcharges, nagkaroon ng penalties, umabot na ng P203 billion,” he added.
He then backed President Rodrigo Duterte’s request for the Bureau of Internal Revenue to collect the Marcos family’s tax obligation, adding that doing so would assist the government pays its initiatives.
Lacson urges BIR to collect Marcoses’ P203-B tax debt
“I fully support the call of the President na tawagin ang BIR to collect kasi P200 billion can do so many things para sa ating mga kababayan, para sa ating bansa (for our countrymen and the country). Ang laki ng utang natin sa gastos natin sa pandemic (We have a huge debt because of the pandemic). Well, P203 billion will help our countrymen a lot,” Lacson said.
According to lawyer Vic Rodriguez, the spokesman for presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, the ownership of the assets subject to the estate tax has yet to be determined.
He asserted that the problem was “all politics.”
“It’s not a coincidence that rivals of presidential frontrunner Bongbong Marcos are raising this matter in unison a few weeks before the elections. Sadly, this is all about politics,” Rodriguez said.
“Our rivals are misdirecting everyone by claiming that the case has attained finality when the truth of the matter is, it is still pending in court, and the ownership of the properties in litigation has yet to be settled,” he added.
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