The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) on Wednesday filed before the Department of Justice (DOJ) P18-billion tax evasion charges against corporate officers, accounting firms, and certified public accountants of three companies for allegedly buying and using “fake receipts” since 2018 in their business transactions.
“We filed cases against those who bought ghost receipts,” said BIR Commissioner Romeo Lumagui Jr. who led the filing of the criminal complaints.
Lumagui identified the three companies as World Balance, CHK Steel, and Gamon Resources. Copies of the complaints were not available as of posting.
The BIR chief said the list of respondents included the corporate officers, the accounting firms they engaged, and the CPAs (certified public accountants) who signed the questioned documents.”
“They face tax evasion cases. These are criminal cases. So, it carries the penalty of imprisonment in addition to paying the taxes because what they submitted were not real expenses,” he explained.
“The total tax liability that we saw in these three companies is around P18 billion,” Lumagui said.
He said the BIR had filed criminal complaints against “ghost corporations that have been selling ghost receipts.”
“So based on documents, it can be seen outright that these companies used the receipts of these ghost corporations),” he lamented.
According to him, the complaints against the three companies are just the first batch of complaints to be filed against those using ghost receipts.
“We have found thousands buying ghost receipts,” he disclosed.
“We could be able to collect around P500 billion from those that bought fake receipts,” he said.
“We are developing our cases against these companies,” he added.