Jump to full article: ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation (ph), 2007-08-27
Author: FEDERICO D. PASCUAL JR
Intro: NILAKAD?: As they say, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Yes, even if it’s just cigarette smoke.
At the Bureau of Internal Revenue, whose personnel are being whipped to collect more taxes, insiders are grousing over the alleged influence peddling of the lawyer-father of a big finance official to lower the taxes on a cigarette manufacturer.
The pressure applied, sources said, has resulted in the reversal by the Department of Finance of a final BIR ruling that slapped an excise tax of P26 per pack of Pall Mall cigarettes made and sold in the Philippines.
It was reportedly Finance Undersecretary Gaudencio Mendoza . . .
President Gloria Arroyo may want to know why the government has given up P93 million a year in excise taxes on a “sin†item at a time when it is reducing the budget deficit through improved tax collection.
She might also want to know who gained from the government’s loss.
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