BIR to start seizing imported cars without tax clearance

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) will start seizing imported vehicles with excise and value-added taxes that remain unpaid.

Commissioner Kim S. Jacinto-Henares said Monday the BIR would no longer extend the deadline for owners and sellers of imported cars in securing the required Authority to Release Imported Goods (Atrig).

The BIR last month moved the deadline to April 30 from the original deadline of March 30.

Issued by the bureau, the Atrig is addressed to the Customs commissioner to allow the release of imported goods from the Bureau of Customs’ (BOC) custody after payment of import duties and other taxes.

Henares had insisted the BIR would still confiscate the imported motor vehicles lacking their Atrigs, even as the country’s largest tax-collection agency admitted to a lack of a warehouse or lot within which to store the units.

The BIR chief earlier warned that “any automobile released from [the BOC’s] custody without the payment or proper payment of the required taxes may be detained by any revenue officer in accordance with Section 172 of the National Internal Revenue Code (NIRC) of 1997… and if warranted, subsequently forfeited pursuant to Section 268(C) of the NIRC.”

Also, “the person/s responsible for the same shall be held liable for unlawful possession or removal without payment of tax pursuant to Section 263 of the NIRC,” Henares had said.

The taxes being levied on imported vehicles are based on the manufacturer or importer’s selling price at the time of importation, including 50-percent surcharge and 20-percent interest as reckoned from the date of final import entry and internal revenue declaration.