Binay campaign donors face tax raps

MANILA, Philippines - Vice President Jejomar Binay’s biggest campaign donors in the 2010 elections were charged with tax evasion before the Department of Justice (DOJ) yesterday.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) filed the criminal complaint against James Tiu and his wife Ann Loraine.

“Using the expenditure method of investigation, investigators determined that spouses James and Ann Loraine committed substantial underdeclaration of income as they were able to make the aforementioned expenses and investments without any identifiable source of income. Their income for the subject taxable years combined was in fact considerably short vis-à-vis their expenditures,” the BIR said.

Interviewed in Angat, Bulacan, Binay said the tax evasion charges against the Tius are baseless.

“You know, we are being investigated by the BIR, we are being investigated by the Ombudsman, it seems that all government agencies are targeting us,” he said.

James was accused of  deliberately failing to provide correct and accurate information in his income tax return for 2010 and 2011 in violation of the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997.

Ann Loraine was found to have failed to file her ITR from 2010 to 2012.

The Tius were assessed an aggregate tax deficiency of P39.03 million, inclusive of surcharges and interest.

James is the brother of Antonio Tiu, whom former Makati vice mayor Ernesto Mercado accused of being Binay’s dummy for a vast estate in Rosario town in Batangas.

Records of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) showed that James contributed a total of P7.5 million to Binay’s campaign in 2010. 

Another P2.5 million was donated to the PDP-Laban political party in the same year.

Spokesman James Jimenez said yesterday the Comelec does not look into the funding sources of campaign contributors.

“The Comelec does not monitor campaign funding sources… It’s beyond our jurisdiction,” he said.

The Comelec’s responsibility is to check if candidates filed their statements of contributions and expenditures after the elections and if they exceeded their campaign spending limits, Jimenez said. 

In 2010, James was found to have made a down payment for a BMW3351 Cabrio in the amount of P5.85 million.

He also sold shares of stocks not traded in the local stock exchange worth P259.5 million and incurred cost and other expenses amounting to P150,000.00.

He paid capital gains tax of P9,511.

Based on his 2010 ITR, James only paid P58,750 in income tax after declaring P4.01 million in total sales and claiming P3.65 million worth of expenses.

A BIR investigation showed that James secured in 2011 a P3.34-million loan from Philippine Business Bank (PBB) and injected P7.5 million in additional capital in publicly listed Greenergy Holdings Inc., where he served as principal financial officer and treasurer from Nov. 9, 2010 to April 29, 2013.

During the same year, he paid only P43.5 million in income tax.

Ann Loraine’s total contribution to Binay’s candidacy amounted to P7.5 million in 2010. 

She also contributed P2.5 million to PDP-Laban.

She was found to have divested P172,000 worth of shares and made additional investment in Greenenergy in the amount of P7.5 million. – With Sheila Crisostomo, Helen Flores