BIR sues fake tax ID seller preying on Chinese workers

Updated @ 12:32 a.m., Dec. 21, 2019

MANILA, Philippines — The taxman has haled to court an alleged fraudster suspected of selling fake tax identification number (TIN) ID cards to Chinese workers in Manila.

In a statement on Friday, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) said its Revenue Region No. 6 in the city of Manila filed last Tuesday a criminal complaint against Marjerie Reyes Rasgo before the Office of the City Prosecutor.

Rasgo was charged with “using falsified or fake accountable forms” as well as “falsification by private individual and use of falsified documents,” both violations of the Tax Code and of the Revised Penal Code.

Invalid cards

An informant coordinating with the BIR’s regional investigation division claimed that Rasgo “sold and delivered spurious 126 TIN cards to her.”

The informant also “paid a significant amount to facilitate and expedite the issuance of such [fake TINs] to several Chinese employees of a certain company,” the BIR said, without identifying that company.

The BIR’s Manila office learned that the TIN IDs sold by Rasgo “were invalid or registered under … a different name, individual or entity.”

A ranking BIR official contacted by the Inquirer did not reply to a query on whether the company employing Chinese workers allegedly victimized by Rasgo was a Philippine offshore gaming operator (Pogo).

The bureau earlier struggled to provide TINs to foreign — mostly Chinese — Pogo workers after the government discovered that there could be hundreds of thousands of them who had been unregistered, and therefore not paying the correct personal income taxes.

To ensure the collection of income taxes from foreign Pogo workers, the BIR, the Bureau of Immigration, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Labor and Employment came up with joint guidelines mandating foreign workers to secure their TINs before getting work permits.

In January, the BIR introduced a new design for its TIN card, which is said to be more difficult to fake.

/tsb /pdi