Duterte asks why Marcos taxes remain unpaid

PRESIDENT Rodrigo R. Duterte on Tuesday night asked why billions of pesos in taxes owed by the heirs of the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos for decades remained unpaid.

“In our taxation, the government can only prod,” he said in a taped speech. “The Bureau of Internal Revenue is there. Let’s ask them why the estate tax is still unpaid.”

Both the country’s tax agency and a body formed in the 1980s tasked to recover ill-gotten wealth of the dictator and his cronies this month confirmed the tax assessments, but did not say why these have not been paid.

The country’s tax agency had demanded payment of the taxes from Marcos estate administrators, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III told reporters in a Viber message on Wednesday, citing the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR). “They have not paid.”

Internal Revenue Commissioner Caesar R. Dulay on March 14 said his office did send a written demand letter to the Marcos heirs on Dec. 2, 2021 regarding their tax liabilities.

The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) separately said the tax agency in 1991 assessed the estate of Ferdinand Marcos P23.29 billion in estate taxes, P184.16 million in unpaid income taxes of Mr. Marcos and his wife Imelda for 1985 and 1986, and P20,410 in unpaid income taxes against the dictator for 1982 to 1985.   

In 1993, BIR levied and sold 11 Marcos properties in Tacloban after the family failed to file an administrative protest. The lots were awarded to the state in the absence of bidders, it said.   

The Supreme Court in 1997 denied a plea by Marcos, Jr. to void the levies as it ruled the tax assessments had become final and unappealable.

The BIR would continue to consolidate the titles on the properties in favor of the government, Mr. Dominguez said. “Bottomline, Marcos does not take any steps to settle and pay because [of] pending litigation.”

The Finance chief did not immediately reply to further questions about the matter, including whether the tax cases are still pending in court.

Mr. Marcos’s detractors have pressed his family to pay the taxes, which have supposedly ballooned to P203 billion due to interest and other penalties.

Mr. Duterte’s spokesman, Jose Ruperto Martin M. Andanar, said the tough-talking leader was just reminding the BIR to do its duty of collecting the taxes.

“The President only reminded the BIR to act on its mandate, and that is to collect taxes,” he told a news briefing.

The Finance department has said the estate tax would be an additional revenue source for the government amid surging global oil prices.

Critics including retired Supreme Court Justice Antonio T. Carpio have been calling on the tax agency to file a criminal case against the Marcoses for refusing to pay the taxes.

Marcos, Jr. is running for president in tandem with Mr. Duterte’s daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio.

The President last year called Mr. Marcos, who is leading in several opinion polls, a “weak leader” and a “spoiled child,” saying he is the reason why his political party did not form an alliance with his daughter. “I am not impressed by him.”

A rival political party earlier warned that the debt could get erased if the tax agency fails to collect the tax by June 30, in case Mr. Marcos wins the election.   

An opposition group earlier said the Marcos camp’s claim that the estate tax liability is still pending in court is “the worst kind of black propaganda. It said Filipinos could not afford to have a president who had been convicted for tax evasion.

The dictator stole as much as $10 billion (P521 billion) from the Filipino people, according to government estimates, earning him a Guinness World Record for the “greatest robbery of a government.” PCGG has recovered about P171 billion. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza and Tobias Jared Tomas