In this July 8, 2015 file photo, Jeane Catherine Napoles, the daughter of suspected pork barrel scam brains Janet Lim-Napoles, hides herself from the media during her arraignment on a tax evasion case. MARC JAYSON CAYABYAB/INQUIRER.net
MANILA — The Court of Tax Appeals has junked the tax protest of Jeane Catherine Napoles after her camp failed to show up for pretrial for the third time.
During the scheduled pretrial hearing on Thursday, the tax court’s Second Division immediately approved the motion by government lawyer Niña Suzette Mendoza to dismiss the case.
There will no longer be a full-blown trial on Napoles’ May 2016 petition for review questioning the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s assessment that has been the basis for her separate P17.46-million tax evasion case.
Justices Caesar A. Casanova was the regular member present during the hearing, along with substitute member Justice Ma. Belen Ringpis-Liban.
Napoles’s criminal cases for tax evasion are still pending trial at the court’s Third Division. She was accused of failing to pay P17.88 million on her Ritz Carlton condominium unit in California in 2011 and a farm lot in Pangasinan in 2012.
She was cast into the limelight after her lavish lifestyle was publicized during the height of the controversy faced by her mother Janet Lim-Napoles, who allegedly facilitated the misuse of lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund allocations through bogus non-government organizations. SFM
Jeanne Catherine Lim Napoles (SCREENGRAB FROM YOUTUBE)