President Rodrigo Duterte wants the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to explain why it has not yet collected a certain estate tax due.
Without naming a particular case, Duterte said the BIR need not be reminded about its mandate to collect the estate tax as he justified why e-sabong should not be suspended.
“Ang gobyerno can only prod. Hindi naman kailangan ng reminder sa Malacañang. Nandiyan ‘yung BIR, so tanungin natin ‘yang BIR bakit hanggang ngayon hindi nakolekta ‘yung estate tax,” he said.
“Hindi ko ho hininto kasi kailangan ng pera sa e-sabong ng gobyerno. I’ll make it public now, it’s PHP640 million a month. And in a year’s time, it’s billion plus. Saan tayo maghanap ng pera ng ganoon na kadali na siguro,” Duterte added.
The Department of Finance earlier said that it is pushing the BIR to collect the billions of worth of unpaid estate taxes of the Marcos heirs.
A 1997 Supreme Court ruling demands the Marcos family to pay P23 billion of estate taxes.
Legal experts and former government officials say that due to surcharges and interest the estate tax liability has ballooned to P203 billion.
The Marcos camp repeatedly avoided discussing the issue and blamed it on the election season.
