CTA places convicted tax evader under hospital arrest

Manila, Philippines -  The Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) yesterday ordered convicted tax evader Gloria Kintanar to be placed under hospital arrest after she failed to attend the implementation of judgment on her case for the second time.          

CTA’s Third Division composed of Associate Justices Juanito Castañeda Jr., Olga Palanca-Enriquez and Erlinda Uy ordered Kintanar’s transfer from a hospital in Silang, Cavite to the Quezon City jail once her medical condition improves so she can serve her prison term.  

“The medical condition of the accused worsened (and was) perhaps exacerbated by the adverse media reports,” Kintanar’s lawyer Salvador Quebral told the court. 

Quebral said Kintanar has been suffering from “hypertensive urgency dyslipedemia.”

Kintanar, a distributor of Forever Living products, was sentenced to two to four years imprisonment after she was found guilty of tax evasion by the CTA for unpaid taxes worth P6.3 million.         

Kintanar’s camp earlier filed a motion for the issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) before the Supreme Court (SC) seeking to stop the implementation of her verdict.               

Prosecution lawyer Jason Torres, however, said that Kintanar “has no intention to appear in court.”

Kintanar’s case was the “first definitive conviction of a tax evasion case under the Run Against Tax Evaders (RATE) program since 2005.”       

The SC had affirmed the CTA’s decision that found Kintanar guilty of two counts of violating Section 255 of the National Internal Revenue Code. 

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) filed the case against Kintanar in 2005 for failing to file her income tax return for 2000 and 2001.  

The court also issued a hold departure order against the convicted tax evader.

Kintanar’s camp had filed a petition for review in March last year, but the SC’s Third Division dismissed the petition in August.