The head of the country’s biggest revenue agency is supporting moves to lift bank secrecy to better run after tax cheats.
“Lifting bank secrecy law for tax purposes will help prosper the enforcement of tax laws. It will become a deterrent for taxpayers not to pay right taxes, which will hopefully lessen tax evasion in the long run,” Commissioner Caesar Dulay of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) said in a text message to the Inquirer.
To recall, President Duterte himself vetoed the general tax amnesty provision under Republic Act No. 11213, or the Tax Amnesty Act of 2019, issued on Feb. 14, pending the lifting of bank secrecy for tax purposes.
“The President was constrained to veto the portion of the law covering the general amnesty because of the lack of provisions breaking the walls of bank secrecy, setting the framework for complying with international standards on exchange of information and other safeguards against those who abuse by declaring untruthful assets or net worth,” Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III explained earlier.
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At present, only the Philippines and Lebanon still restrict access to bank accounts.
The latest BIR data showed that only less than 1 percent of the more than 1,000 alleged tax evaders who had been slapped cases were convicted in the past 13 years.
