Retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — The Marcos family’s unsettled estate tax estimated at P203 billion will be “gone forever” if former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. wins the presidency, retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio warned on Thursday.
“They will collect that if you are an ordinary person but if you’re an official, a senator, a governor, they will not collect it. How much more if you become president? Can the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) collect if you are now the President? That’s gone forever,” Carpio said in an ANC interview.
“He (Marcos) will appoint the BIR commissioner. Will the BIR commissioner send him a notice of payment for the estate tax?” he added.
It was in early March that the party of presidential candidate Manila Mayor Isko Moreno called for the urgent payment of the unpaid estate tax.
READ: Isko party to BIR: Demand Marcos heirs to pay P203 billion owed to gov’t
The Marcos camp, meanwhile, has maintained that estate tax of the Marcos family remains unsettled since the properties linked to the case are still under litigation.
The former senator’s spokesperson, Atty. Vic Rodriguez, also previously said that the issue about the Marcoses’ estate tax is “all about politics.”
The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), however, said the BIR “already executed its final assessment” on the involved properties as early as 1993 and that “as early as 1997, the judgment on the tax case had become final and executory”
“Now that he wants to be president and if you’re president you must be the model for the nation. And you must be the model taxpayer also. But if you are the biggest tax evader in the country, then who will now pay taxes to the government?…So we have to ask him ‘you want to be president? Then you should be the model to the Filipino people in terms of paying taxes.’ Because without taxes the country will not run,” Carpio went on.
“We cannot pay teachers, we cannot pave our roads or maintain our roads. We cannot pay our soldiers. We cannot pay our government employees without taxes from the people and that’s why the President must be the number one example,” he added.
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