BACOLOD CITY—The cooperative of Negros sugar farmers went to court on Friday to stop the Bureau of Internal Revenue from taxing sugar farmers’ cooperatives.

Named respondents in the petition that was filed at the Bacolod Regional Trial Court were the BIR commissioner and the bureau’s Region 12 director, Rodita Galanto.

The Negros Sugar Farmers Multi Purpose Cooperative (NSFMPC) asked the court to stop the BIR from imposing Revenue Regulation No. 13-2008 that would tax cooperatives starting Oct. 22, saying it was “patently invalid and illegal.”

Earlier, Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero, chair of the Senate committee on ways and means, told sugar planters to fight the BIR order.

BIR’s Revenue Regulation No. 13-2008 violates the Philippine Constitution and Cooperative Code of the Philippines and is therefore invalid, claimed lawyer Jesus Ramos, counsel for NSFMPC.

The United Cadiz Farmers Association will file a similar petition in court on Monday, according to Ramos.

Fr. Armando Onion, chair of the Ma-ao Parish Multi Purpose Cooperative Inc., Sunday said that if BIR fails to agree to the moratorium that they were seeking, his cooperative would also file a petition for TRO against the BIR. The new revenue regulation is imposed on Oct. 22.

The NSFMPC petition said it has been granted tax exemption through a ruling of the office of the BIR commissioner but under the new revenue regulation’s definition of agricultural cooperatives, no cooperative of farmers or producers of sugar can now qualify for tax exemption.

The new revenue regulation, it said, erroneously likened an agricultural cooperative to an agricultural corporation.