SAGAY CITY, Philippines—Senator Mar Roxas on Thursday said he would conduct a Senate inquiry into complaints lodged against the Bureau of Internal Revenue for taxing the produce of sugar cooperatives.

The sugar cooperatives earlier disclosed that the BIR imposed a 12 percent value-added tax (VAT), paid in advance, on the 60 percent of the cooperatives' total production even if they were entitled to 100 percent tax exemption.

"If in the law the sugar cooperatives are clearly exempted, then the BIR cannot go beyond the law," Roxas said at a news conference in Sagay City on Thursday.

Roxas visited Sagay to turn over a P100,000 check to Sagay Mayor Alfredo Marañon Jr. as his contribution to the building of the Joseph G. Marañon Library next to the Museu sang Bata sa Negros.

He urged the sugar cooperatives to send him a letter of their complaints so he could call for an investigation on the BIR's insistence on imposing the VAT on them.

The sugar cooperatives, in a position paper, said that the BIR, through officer-in-charge Rodita Galanto, had come up with "whimsical conditions in its effort to collect taxes from the sugar cooperatives."

The conditions included the submission of the list of buyers of their products and their respective tax identification number cards as a requisite for their exemption.

The sugar cooperatives also noted that the BIR had been harassing the cooperatives with examination of their books even without prior written approval from the BIR commissioner and the Cooperative Development Authority.

On Wednesday, the Negros Occidental Sanggunian also agreed to conduct an inquiry on the actions taken by Galanto against sugar cooperatives.

However, Galanto could not be reached for comment.