By Luisa Maria Jacinta C. Jocson, Reporter
THE DEPARTMENT of Justice (DoJ) and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) filed on Thursday a total of 14 criminal complaints against six individuals associated with two companies found to be using “ghost” receipts.
In a statement on Thursday, the bureau said the DoJ filed the criminal information complaints against five corporate officers and an accountant of two alleged ghost corporations — Decarich Supertrade, Inc. and Redington Corp.
Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Romeo D. Lumagui, Jr. appeared at the Quezon City Hall of Justice during the lodging of criminal complaints that included tax evasion charges before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) and Metropolitan Trial Court (MTC) of Quezon City.
“The DoJ, after preliminary investigation, found probable cause that these corporations together with five corporate officers and accountant committed crimes for tax evasion failure to file tax returns, failure to supply correct and accurate information in the tax returns, and making false report in the audited financial statements for taxable year 2021,” the BIR said.
The corporations were part of the first list of sellers using ghost receipts when the BIR filed a criminal complaint before the Justice department last year.
“To recall, the BIR released a strong message against this syndicate using fictitious receipts that it is serious in putting these fraudulent activities into halt since the government is losing an estimated total revenue amounting to P25.5 billion, for taxable years 2019-2021 alone,” the BIR said.
Earlier this month, the bureau filed a criminal case against a cosmetics company for allegedly using receipts from ghost companies, resulting in tax liabilities worth P1.6 billion.
“The BIR, after investigation, found that Ever Bilena claimed fake receipts/transactions with Decarich Supertrade, Inc. From Decarich alone, Ever Bilena was able to evade payment of taxes amounting to millions of pesos,” the bureau said.