MANILA, Philippines - The Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) has found “no justifiable reason” to dismiss the P17.46-million tax evasion cases against Jeane Catherine Napoles, the youngest daughter of alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles.
In its three-page resolution dated June 29, released to the media yesterday, the tax court’s Third Division denied the younger Napoles’ motion to quash the cases pointing out that the document she was citing in her motion does not disprove the allegations that she did not pay the right taxes.
Jeane Napoles is facing before the Third Division charges of violations of Sections 254 (attempting to evade taxes) and 255 (failure to file an income tax) of the National Internal Revenue Code.
Based on the Bureau of Internal Revenues’ assessment, the younger Napoles has P17.46-million tax liabilities to the government in 2011, the year she supposedly bought a posh condominium unit at Ritz Carlton in Los Angeles, California worth $1.2 million or P54 million.
Napoles’ camp, however, has been repeatedly saying that the BIR erred in its assessment as she did not have any legitimate source of income in 2011 because she was just a student at that time. Napoles also claimed that the condominium unit in the US was purchased by her parents though placed under her name.
In her motion to quash filed on June 2, Napoles said the crime of tax evasion against her has already been “extinguished” by the BIR itself, when the agency served a Preliminary Assessment Notice to her mother, charging the older Napoles of $1.280 million for the same Ritz Carlton condominium unit.