RETIRED Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio yesterday said former First Lady Imelda Marcos and her son presidential aspirant Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. are primarily liable for the unpaid P23.3-billion estate tax which has now ballooned to over P203 billion due to interests, surcharges and penalties.
Carpio issued the statement amid claims by Marcos supporters that the estate tax is charged to the estate and not a person, and that charging estate tax would be to concede the Marcos family has no ill-gotten wealth.
Marcos Jr.’s spokesman, Vic Rodriguez, said critics are using the unpaid tax issue to promote a negative and hateful campaign against the former senator, and reiterated that some cases in connection with the estate tax are still pending in court.
“The delinquent taxpayer is the estate of the decedent, and not necessarily, and exclusively Bongbong Marcos as heir of the deceased. Mindful that cases are still pending in court, truth, however, must be told, peddlers of lies unmasked; negative and hateful campaigning be stopped,” he also said.
Another presidential aspirant, Manila Mayo Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso, said the Marcoses are obliged to pay their estate tax debt because no one is exempt from the law.
He added there is no need to demand payment from the Marcoses because it is an obligation to pay taxes.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) recently said it has issued a payment demand but the Marcoses still have not paid.
Moreno said, “Ang maliwanag sa batas, ikaw ay may obligasyon. Hindi mo ginawa yung obligasyon, meron kang pananagutan sa batas. Ang nakakatakot kasi, paano kung mahalal na presidente (What is clear in the law is that you have an obligation. You did not fulfill your obligation, you are liable. What is worrisome is if Marcos is elected president),” he said.
Sen. Francis Pangilinan, running mate of opposition presidential candidate Vice President Leni Robredo, said the Senate has to investigate the BIR for its “utter failure” to collect the estate tax.
Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, an ally of presidential candidate Sen. Emmanuel Pacquiao, said “there is no development yet as to which committee can and will hear” the tax issue.
Pimentel earlier filed Senate Resolution No. 998 urging the appropriate Senate panel to look into the issue of unpaid tax.
Carpio earlier urged the BIR to file criminal cases against the Marcos family for ‘willful refusal” to pay the tax liability.
Carpio said under the Tax Code and the Revenue Regulations, the co-administrators of the Marcos estate — Imelda, Marcos Jr., “as well as the other heirs of Marcos Sr. are expressly made liable to pay the estate tax in the original amount of P23.3 billion, which has now ballooned to over P203 billion.”
He said Section 91 (D) of the Tax Code provides that the “estate tax imposed by Section 84 shall be paid by the executor or administrator before delivery to any beneficiary of his distributive share of the estate.”
When there are two or more executors or administrators, Carpio said, all of them are severally liable for the payment of the tax. — With Jocelyn Montemayor and Wendell Vigilia
