Former BIR chief Henares says Marcoses must pay estate tax liability
MANILA, Philippines — Former tax chief Kim Henares countered arguments that the Marcos family's unpaid estate taxes are not a liability for presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. or other living heirs of the late dictator.
In a Facebook post on Sunday, the former Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) commissioner said that failure to settle the arrears amounting to P203.8 billion exposes the Marcos family to potential criminal charges.
"The estate tax is a tax on the properties left by a deceased. However, it is erroneous to say that it is not a liability of Senator Marcos Jr. or the heirs of former President Marcos Sr. Section 105 and 107 of the Tax Code of 1977, or PD No. 1158, as amended, passed during the time of the former President, specifically obligates ‘the executor, administrator, or heirs’ of the deceased to file the estate tax return and pay the estate tax," Henares said.
“Failing to do so, opens these persons to possible criminal liabilities (Section 119). Hence, it is wrong to say that it is not the liability of Senator Marcos Jr. or the other heirs of President Marcos Sr. to pay the estate tax due,” she added.
Henares wrote the statement in reply to a Facebook post by columnist and former political science professor Antonio Contreras, who asserted that “(an) estate tax is a burden of the estate, not of the heirs.”
Contreras also argued that the government cannot collect estate taxes on the Marcos family’s ill-gotten assets because these were supposed to be seized by the state. Contreras even shared a March 10, 2022 DZMM interview of Henares where he paraphrased her remarks as saying that “sequestered assets are no longer part of the estate of the deceased, and would no longer be part of the assessment for estate tax.”
While Henares indeed said that the BIR can no longer go after sequestered assets because the government already owns them, she explained that the tax agency can nevertheless run after the other hidden estates of the Marcos patriarch, including those offshore. As of September 2021, the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), which was formed to recover the Marcos family’s loot, was still going after P125.9 billion more in ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses.
READ: Marcos claim on assessment of unpaid estate tax inaccurate, PCGG tells Isko camp
“So you have to find those estates. BIR found what they can find here,” she told DZMM in Filipino. “The next step is find those estates abroad. But we will have to follow the justice system of other countries.”
In a separate interview with One PH on Monday, Henares, a CPA-lawyer who served at the BIR during the administration of late Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, also said that the country’s tax code does not discriminate between assets that are legitimately or illegitimately acquired.
“Whenever we impose taxes, we do not care if the asset is legitimate or illegitimate. As long as you possess it and it’s under your name and not anybody else’s name, we won’t ask if you acquired it through theft, kidnapping, hold up. We don’t have that power,” she said in Filipino.
Henares said there are remedies available to the Marcoses, including applying for a tax amnesty.
“The estate tax due will be based on the value of these properties as of 1989, and the applicable estate tax rate is 60% as provided in PD 1158, unless the Estate files for an amnesty, which it can do as the deadline is on December 31, 2022,” she said.
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