Internal Revenue Commissioner Caesar R. Dulay has ordered the suspension of three allegedly erring tax examiners and endorsed the filing of administrative charges following a taxpayer complaint implicating them in corrupt practices.
In a statement Thursday, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) said that despite being in office for less than a month, Dulay was “beginning to make good his promise to cleanse the [agency] of corrupt revenue personnel.”
The three BIR personnel charged with grave misconduct were Susan R. Ferrer, Rogelio N. Jugao and group supervisor Crisanto M. Olazo of Revenue District Office No. 40, Cubao, Revenue Region No. 7, Quezon City.
The BIR said the revenue officers were likewise slapped 90-day preventive suspensions as well as ordered to turn over all public property they had been accountable for, alongside their unfinished assignments at work.
“Commissioner Dulay signed the formal administrative charges and preventive suspension orders slapped on the three erring revenue field personnel. Criminal cases will also be filed against the aforesaid revenue personnel before a proper court,” the BIR said.
READ: New BIR chief to sack erring examiners
According to the BIR, the charges against the three tax examiners stemmed from “a complaint filed by a certain taxpayer with the Office of the Commissioner a few days after Commissioner Dulay assumed his post.”
Dulay hence personally ordered and also monitored the investigation conducted by the agency’s Quezon City regional investigation division, the BIR said.
“Records of investigation showed that revenue officers Ferrer and Jugao contacted and met the complainant in restaurants outside of the regular course of conduct of audit and before the issuance of a preliminary assessment notice and final assessment notice and demanded and attempted to collect P3 million and P30 million, respectively, from the complainant for the adjustment and/or settlement of the tax liability. Group supervisor Olazo was included in the charges for his failure to prevent and instead, consented to the demand and attempt of Jugao to collect the P30 million alleged settlement,” the BIR said.
“Investigators took note in the aforesaid cases of the unscrupulous practice of the respondents to meet the taxpayer/representatives outside of the BIR when it is only allowed where it is impracticable to do so because of the voluminous records of the taxpayer. They also flagged down the ruse of examiners to dramatically reduce huge assessments to entice the taxpayer to cough up money for [examiners’] personal gain,” the country’s biggest tax-collection agency added.
The BIR said Dulay’s orders noted that the three tax examiners “utterly failed to discharge their duties with the highest degree of integrity, honesty, excellence, professionalism and impartiality and had committed acts that carry the elements of corruption, clear intent to violate the law, and flagrant disregard of established rules in the conduct of audit and investigation of tax cases.”
If found guilty, the three personnel will be dismissed from service.
Dulay earlier told the Inquirer that he plans to rid the BIR of bad eggs, especially tax examiners.
The BIR chief had ordered a review of the letters of authority—the official document that empowers revenue officers to examine and scrutinize taxpayers’ books in order to determine their correct tax liabilities—in order to know who among examiners have pending investigations, and look into them.
To determine which among the BIR’s examiners are bad eggs, “we’ll have to go through the process—we would look at their performance evaluation one by one,” Dulay had said.
At present, the BIR has about 3,000 tax examiners.
President Rodrigo Duterte earlier said the BIR was among the most corrupt government agencies./rga