BIR still going after Pacquiao

Sarangani Representative Manny Pacquiao

GENERAL SANTOS CITY—The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in Central Mindanao says it is not giving up on its case against world boxing champion and Sarangani Rep. Manny Pacquiao for his failure to answer the agency’s summonses and submit his 2010 tax documents.

Although the city prosecutor dismissed the case against Pacquiao on Oct. 12 citing the BIR’s failure to personally serve its summonses, the tax agency has filed an appeal.

Regional Director Rozil Lozares said the agency would “exhaust all legal remedies available just to overturn the decision of the City Prosecutor’s Office in Koronadal City.”

In his motion for reconsideration, Eric Diesto, chief of the legal division of BIR Region XII, assailed the prosecutor’s resolution, saying BIR representatives failed to personally serve the subpoena on Pacquiao because access to him was very limited. All matters regarding BIR transactions were being handled by the boxer’s accountants.

The subpoena was served twice but Pacquiao was not around, Diesto said.

Diesto admitted that in February, Pacquiao sent two lawyers and two accountants to clear up his problem with the BIR.

The BIR said the case it filed in March was not a tax evasion case but simply one of a “failure to obey summonses.”

But Arnold D. Cruz, officer in charge of the Prosecutor’s Office in Koronadal City, threw out the BIR’s case, saying it was “absurd to hold the respondent liable for neglecting to obey a subpoena which he did not receive at all in the first place.” Aquiles Z. Zonio, Inquirer Mindanao

Originally posted: 8:42 pm | Sunday, November 25th, 2012