Tax case shines light again on GenSan land mess

GENERAL SANTOS CITY—A tax evasion case filed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) against a businessman implicated in the purchase of a huge tract of land with a spurious title has again drawn the limelight to what could be the biggest controversy over fake titles in the city.

The BIR filed a formal complaint against Jimmy T. Tang, president of Jibetronic Trading Corporation (JTC), at the Department of Justice on July 23 for his alleged “willful attempt to evade paying the appropriate income tax” as well as deliberate failure to file the proper income tax return for 2014 in violation of the Tax Code of 1997.

Estela Sales, BIR deputy commissioner and legal group head, said the agency’s investigation showed that JTC, which is engaged in the wholesale of machinery, equipment and supplies, paid P92.6 million for a house and lot in Wack Wack Subdivision in Greenhills in Mandaluyong City to Keystone Real Estate Development Corp.

Sales said what was baffling was that JTC, which has a paid-up capital of only P500,000, was able to pay for the piece of property in full on Jan. 14, 2014.

Julian Montemayor, consultant for land affairs of the Alcantara Group of Companies, described Tang as “the same businessman, who suddenly surfaced last year in General Santos City, claiming to own long-disputed vast tracts of government land using a land title that was discovered to be fake.”

The piece of land in the city that Tang laid claim to, Montemayor said, was actually the subject of a criminal case that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources filed in the Regional Trial Court Branch 85 based here.

The title to the land was also one of several fake land titles under investigation by the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights chaired by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III.

The land that Montemayor was referring to is a 707-hectare prime land here that Tang claimed to have bought last year.

But the land turned out to be a former pasture lease area, which had been the subject of an Integrated Forest Management Agreement between the government and Alsons Development and Investment Corp., a member of the Alcantara Group.

“To support his claim, Mr. Tang presented a land title which the (city’s) Register of Deeds, upon investigation, declared to be fake,” Montemayor said.

Tang holds titles over six parcels of land with a total area of 707.6 ha with mother title OCT No. (V-1344) (P-144) P-2252 “which was discovered to be spurious by the Land Registration Authority (LRA) and was the subject of an earlier investigation by the National Bureau Investigation.” Aquiles Zonio, Inquirer Mindanao