Lawmaker pushes for expanded Court of Tax Appeals

Sen. Francis Escudero, chairman of the Senate ways and means committee, has proposed to expand the jurisdiction of the Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) to make it work more efficiently.

Escudero, in Senate Bill 1485, proposed to elevate the rank of the CTA to the level of a collegiate court with special jurisdiction and to enlarge its membership to nine justices instead of the present membership of six justices.

“With the deluge of new cases filed will be the increase in the workload on the CTA. It is rather certain that the Tax Court, with its limited manpower and resources, will be unable to cope with its overwhelming caseload,” Escudero said.

He said this defeats the objectives of the Tax Court, more particularly, the swift disposition of tax cases bearing in mind that taxes are the lifeblood of the government.

Citing government data, Escudero noted that 179 new cases have already been filed from January to June or within a six-month period only. He said the figure shows a sharp increase in the number of cases reported in previous years.

For the whole of 2006, there were 291 cases that were filed before the CTA, 407 for 2005, 357 for 2004, 265 for 2003, 212 for 2002, 158 for 2001 and 228 for 2000.

As such, Escudero proposed to add a third division to the Tax Court and increase its membership and manpower.

 “Consequently, the Court of Tax Appeals shall have a total of nine members composed of a presiding justice and eight associate justices sitting en banc or in three divisions with three members each,” Escudero said.

Increasing the membership of the Tax Court would ensure the independence of the CTA, Escudero said.

 “With the present en banc membership of the Court of Tax Appeals consisting of only six justices, it is very difficult for a losing party to a case tried before a CTA division to obtain a reversal when elevated to the CTA en banc,” Escudero said.

Furthermore, Escudero said that with the present membership of the court en banc consisting of six members, there is a distinct possibility of having a tie or a deadlock in the resolution of an issue.

The National Government relies heavily on the Court of Tax Appeals for its fight against tax dodgers and as part of efforts to help boost state coffers. Faced with not enough funds to finance its expenditures, the government is exhausting various measures to fix its finances. It hopes to contain the budget deficit at P63 billion this year and wipe this out by the end of next year.