Government uncovers more fake tax credit certificates

The Department of Finance has uncovered another anomaly in the sale of Tax Credit Certificates (TCCs) as it was able to block two transactions involving P82.83 million worth of fake TCCs.

Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho said the fraud was exposed after the companies set to purchase the TCCs reported the deal to the DOF’s One-Stop-Shop Tax Credit and Duty Drawback Center, which then verified and informed the firms that the TCCs are fraudulent.

This new case of fake TCCs comes on the heels of the arrest last June 16 of three individuals, including a Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) official, involved in the sale of P27.8 million worth of fake TCCs.

The syndicate was nabbed by the combined force of the DOF, the National Bureau of Investigation and the Special Presidential Task Force 156 assigned to investigate the various tax scams.

It was, in fact, in the OSS Center, the office that accepts and processes applications for tax credits of qualified exporters, where the first tax credit scam was discovered during the period from 1995 to 1998 wherein the government lost close to P5.2 billion after the office issued TCCs to non-qualified entities.

The DOF then subsequently imposed a sweeping reorganization of the OSS Center and re-engineered its operating systems to prevent a recurrence of the scam.

The results of these efforts became evident as the average amount of TCCs released by the OSS Center dropped substantially from an average annual release of P11.92 billion from 1995 to 1998 to only P2.85 billion over the last four years (1998 to 2002).

The investigation of the first tax credit scam is being handled by the Special Presidential Task Force 156 which was created by virtue of EO 156 issued on Oct. 6, 2001 by President Arroyo.

Headed by Camacho, its member agencies include the Office of the President, the Department of Justice, NBI and the OSS Center.

To prevent a repeat of the sale of fake TCCs, Camacho had enjoined other corporations to verify first with the DOF the authenticity of the TCCs before buying them, adding that the DOF will aggressively pursue the investigations and prosecute all parties involved in the scam.