Philippine Daily Inquirer
8:16 pm | Tuesday, November 13th, 2012
BIR Commissioner Kim Jacinto-Henares. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Gold sellers are actually paying less tax than they should based on the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s application of levies on the sale of the precious metal.
Internal Revenue Kim Henares said in an interview that sellers should be paying 34 percent or almost five times the 7 percent that some lawmakers wanted to suspend.
“Based on the (Tax Code), if your income is more than P500,000, the tax is 32 percent,” Henares said. “Those who sell to the BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) exceed that amount.”
Environment Secretary Ramon Paje has been quoted as estimating the drop in gold sales to the BSP at 80 percent but would not say if it was due to the gold tax, which was implemented starting in 2011.
Also, Mines and Geosciences Bureau director Leo Jasareno earlier told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that in previous years, an average of 30 tons of gold were sold yearly to the BSP.
Jasereno said that in 2011, only five tons were sold to the central bank – most of it by large-scale mining firms. He added that it could be expected that the rest of the gold produced in the country were sold by small-scale miners in the underground market.
Some lawmakers have asked the BIR to suspend the tax on gold, warning that this spurred the black market at the expense of national coffers.
“If that is the case, the issue is not taxation, it is law enforcement,” Henares said.
She said that the BIR has been collecting just a 5-percent creditable withholding tax on top of the 2-percent excise tax on gold sales.
“They are actually paying less (than they should), so what is this complaining about?” Henares said.
In fact, the BIR has among its list of alleged tax evaders at least one gold trader against whom the agency filed a complaint with the Department of Justice in 2011.
In December 2011, the BIR accused a Cebu City-based gold trader of five counts of willful attempt to evade or defeat tax, 15 counts of willful failure to file Quarterly Income Tax Returns (ITRs), and five counts of willful failure to file Annual ITRs for 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009.
Citing records from the central bank, the BIR said the accused, Junrie Daitol Tenorio, sold gold to BSP worth a total of P3.95 billion during the five years to 2009.
“Not only did he fail to file the required tax returns, he also did not pay his income taxes due on the said taxable years,” the BIR said in a statement related to the complaint.
The BIR wants the trader to pay a total of P2.67 billion in back taxes for those five years, including surcharges and interests.
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Tags: Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas , BIR commissioner , Bureau of Internal Revenue , Business , gold , gold taxes , Kim Henares , metals , state budget and taxes
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