BIR vindicated over Romulo Neri tax case, says commissioner

MANILA, Philippines – The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) said they were vindicated by the Department of Justice’s (DoJ) decision to file a tax evasion case against former SSS President Romulo Neri.

BIR Commissioner Kim Jacinto-Henares said, “We have always said that we will not file any case unless we are certain that the person is guilty…we are happy because our work has been vindicated.”

Henares also said that partly they were sad because “we have to reach this stage.”

“Since the people try to evade taxes, we have no choice but to do this every week [filing of tax evasion cases],” Henares said.

“BIR will be the happiest when we cannot file any more cases because people take their tax obligation seriously,” Henares said.

Neri, in his counter affidavit, had said that the BIR complaint was reckless, unverified assumptions and even based on malicious imputation.

“I believe I have honestly reported my income tax and had thus paid income taxes thereon to the BIR so the instant charge of tax evasion is utterly wrong, baseless and precipitated and it even smacks of malice and bad faith on the part of the complaining witnesses and those who had ordered them to file it against me,” he said.

Neri said that the BIR never informed or assessed him on his alleged tax deficiency/liability. “It [BIR] simply issued a Letter of Authority which was served to me on or about the third week of September 2010 and nothing followed…”