MANILA, Philippines — Four “ghost” corporations selling fabricated invoices and receipts were sued yesterday for violating the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997, resulting in the government’s loss of P25.5 billion in taxes, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) said.
BIR Commissioner Romeo Lumagui Jr. said these corporations – Buildforce Trading Inc., Crazykitchen Foodtrade Corp., Decarich Supertrade Inc. and Redington Corp. – do not have any legitimate business activity and were established solely for selling fictitious sales invoices and receipts to buyers for false and anomalous purchases.
He filed the criminal complaints before the Department of Justice yesterday. The cases stemmed from a BIR raid in December 2022 at a condominium unit in Quezon City, which led to the seizure of thousands of fictitious receipts.
Lumagui said that as a result of their fraudulent tax schemes, the government lost an estimated total deficiency income tax of P17.63 billion and a total deficiency value-added tax of P7.91 billion for taxable years 2019-2021, inclusive of surcharges and interests.
He assured the public that the BIR would intensify its enforcement activities to put a stop to these fraudulent activities and increase voluntary tax compliance.
“We are just getting started. The financial magnitude of this syndicate issuing fictitious receipts is alarming. They are profiting from businesses through convincing their clients to ghost our tax authority. I have set my marching orders to the BIR Legal Group to file criminal charges against the individuals behind these companies,” Lumagui told reporters.
The BIR has a list of both buyers and sellers of these fictitious receipts, and taxpayers and businesses who used these receipts would be audited by BIR examiners, he said.
“I want to convey to the public, especially to the citizens who pay their correct taxes, the importance of all the activities that our agency is doing, especially the tightening of our enforcement activities. I will not allow such corruption to continue, we will suppress it to the best of our abilities,” Lumagui added.