Smartmatic disputes VAT claim amid protest

NO CHEATING A 2016 file photo shows then Commission on Elections Chair Andres Bautista and Smartmatic official Elie Moreno assuring reporters there was no cheating in the election that year. —INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Election service provider Smartmatic on Friday said there was “nothing irregular” in the tax reimbursements it obtained from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in 2016.

But the Comelec’s usual election-time workhorses—the country’s public school teachers—have had enough and demanded that Smartmatic be excluded henceforth from the country’s election processes.

“Tama na. Sobra na. Smartmatic erase na (Enough already. Too much already. Erase Smartmatic already),” said a streamer of the Department of Education Teachers Union at a press briefing on Thursday.

The teachers said that their own experiences and the bribery and money laundering indictments returned by a US federal grand jury in Miami, Florida, last week “raised serious questions about the integrity of Smartmatic.”

The 2016 reimbursement of P195 million in value-added tax (VAT) was mentioned in the grand jury indictment of Smartmatic officials and former Comelec Chair Andres Bautista, who was the poll body’s chair at the time.

‘Nothing irregular’

But Smartmatic’s office in Makati on Friday issued a statement saying “this reimbursement was approved by the Comelec en banc based on the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) ruling.”

Smartmatic said it “simply complied” with the provisions in the bidding documents issued by the Comelec for the contracts for the 2016 National and Local Elections (NLE), which stated that the approved budget was “inclusive of all taxes,” including VAT.

“It should be noted that such a provision was not new for that election. On the contrary, it had been present in other bidding documents for previous automated elections, including the 2013 NLE. Accordingly, Smartmatic’s 2015 bids factored in all applicable taxes, including VAT, and the prices in the signed contracts for the lease of 23,000 and 70,000 machines were also inclusive of all taxes,” the company said.

Upon the request of Comelec, the BIR ruled in April 2016 that the Comelec was only entitled to withhold 5 percent.

Four months later, in August 2016, the Comelec under Bautista reimbursed Smartmatic for the remaining 7 percent of the 12 percent VAT that had previously been withheld.

Not over yet

But on Wednesday, incumbent Comelec Chair George Garcia questioned the VAT reimbursements, saying the poll body should have retained the VAT.

In a media forum in Manila, Garcia said the Comelec’s law department in 2016 opposed the reimbursement and so did Bautista’s successor, the late Sixto Brillantes Jr., also questioned the reimbursements.

READ: DepEd union calls for removal of Smartmatic from PH elections process

Garcia said the Comelec will use evidence presented in the indictment to further investigate allegations of rigged bidding, price jacking and tax fraud involving the three contracts worth P3.8 billion that Smartmatic obtained from the Comelec.

Meanwhile, the teachers’ union said their experiences in previous elections and the issues raised in the Miami indictments showed that Smartmatic could not be trusted. INQ