Comelec: Keeping excess campaign donations not wrong if taxes are paid
MANILA, Philippines — There is nothing wrong in keeping excess campaign fund donations as long as appropriate taxes are paid, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said Tuesday.
According to Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez, there is no rule mandating that the candidate should return the excess funds to the donor or use it for charitable purposes.
“The only rule that there is can be found in revenue regulations issued by the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) which state very clearly that unspent campaign funds shall be treated as income and shall be subject to the payment of the appropriate income tax, so it follows that there really is nothing wrong with hanging on to unspent campaign funds as long as you pay taxes,” Jimenez said in an online press briefing.
“If I may just editorialize beyond that, ultimately the disposition of these funds is between the candidate and the donor, so if the donor sees nothing objectionable with that sort of use of the money they gave, that’s it, again, subject to the payment of appropriate taxes,” he added.
During the Jessica Soho Presidential Interviews, presidential aspirant and Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso admitted that he saved P50 million from donations during his campaign as a senatorial candidate in 2016.
However, Moreno said that he paid P9.7 million taxes for the amount.
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