Actor Richard Gutierrez has asked the Department of Justice to dismiss the tax evasion complaint filed against him by the Bureau of Internal Revenue for being “premature.”
In a five-page rejoinder affidavit, Gutierrez stressed that the BIR should have determined first if he has tax deficiencies amounting to P38.57 million in 2012 before filing tax evasion and perjury complaints against him.
Gutierrez manifested to the DoJ that he and his company R Gutz received just last Sept. 11 the BIR’s “final notice” to make available its books of accounts and other related documents covering the year 2012.
“This only means that the complainant was still on the process of tax examination of R Gutz documents for the year 2012, the same taxable year covered by the tax evasion case filed against me and R Gutz,” the actor stressed.
“This just affirms my allegations that the tax evasion case filed against me and R Gutz by the complainant for the taxable year 2012 was premature because it has not yet exhausted all the procedures in establishing tax due and deficiencies,” he said.
In fact, the BIR just issued its final notice for the determination of tax due and deficiency for the taxable year 2012 on September 11, 2017 “when the tax evasion complaint has long been filed and submitted for resolution,” he added.
The BIR filed the tax evasion case on April 21 against Gutierrez before the DoJ, which has yet to issue a resolution on the issue.
Then, on Aug. 17, the BIR filed falsification and perjury cases against the actor before the DoJ related to the first case. This case was submitted for resolution last Thursday.
Gutierrez expressed dismay over the BIR’s actions.
“I was put into public ridicule and was subjected into publicity trial for being an alleged tax evader when in fact they can just send notice first to me and R Gutz so that privately complainant can check the books of R Gutz before filing any case,” he said.
Gutierrez lamented that he should not be accused of filing falsified tax documents. The BIR “should take as judicial notice if not merely public knowledge that most, if not all celebrities file their taxes through their accountants,” he said.
The actor said the accounts’ representations “as to where to file the taxes are enough for R Gutz and for me to reasonably believe that the returns she gave to us are true and authentic.”
“Thus, as declared in Arias Principle, in the remote instance that the subject’s returns are falsified and I used it in a case, I should not be liable for falsification because I did not have knowledge that said documents are falsified,” he argued. Rey E. Requejo