WORKERS of the One-Stop Shop Interagency Tax Credit and Duty Drawback Center, an agency under the Department of Finance, have opposed the special audit done by the Commission on Audit on the OSS-Center’s operations since 2015.
Lawyer Marlon Mercado, who is representing the OSS-Center in its legal battle, said the special audit team’s allegation that P8.85 billion of tax credits were illegally issued was supposedly based on altered provisions of Article 39 (j) of Executive Order 226, or the Omnibus Investment Code (OIC), and tampered results of an OSS-Center executive committee resolution passed on October 18, 2020.
The OSS-Center is one of the state agencies tasked to implement provisions of the OIC.
Mercado alleged the twin moves fit the desired conclusion of the audit team that the subject TCCs were all issued without any legal basis at all.
The OSS-Center has asked the Supreme Court for certiorari and writ of prohibition against the 11 batches of 578 notices of disallowances involving eight firms amounting to P2.216 billion that the COA has issued since 2018.
In a 168-page petition filed last May 3, OSS-Center officers and staff said they were prompted to file the petition after the audit agency answered just two of the 11 petitions for review they filed with the audit agency.
