Why do bizmen cheat on their taxes?

Last Monday's headline in The Freeman blared, "Some Execs 'Tax Cheats'" was something of a revelation, that in this era of the so-called "Daang Matuwid" the Social Weather Station survey on Enterprises on Corruption which was released last August 27th showed that 28 percent of executives surveyed said that there is corruption in the private sector in line with tax fraud. As the Yellow slogan goes, "Kung Walang Corrupt, Walang Mahirap!" This is testimony against the presidency of President PNoy Aquino.

As the report goes, "SWS also showed that 40 percent believed that "most" executives in their own sector of business are not corrupt while 17 percent said, "almost all" companies conduct honest business practices and pay taxes correctly. Furthermore, 32 percent said almost all companies issue receipts for all revenues and 48 percent demand receipts for all payments for expenses."

This brings us to the question why business executives cheat on their taxes. First of all, it is because many business executives do not even know that practicing "good governance" practices is good for their business. Come now, almost all business in Metro Cebu are family-owned businesses and if families quarrel among themselves, it is due to the fact that some family members benefit more than the others, while in some families, the "smarter ones" get the more benefits and when that happens, they usually end up in a heated court battle, where only their lawyers get rich.

This is a truism or reality that exists in most family-owned businesses.

Anyway, back to the issue of cheating by not paying their taxes. Prior to the EDSA Revolt resulted in the removal of the Marcos dictatorship, one very common albeit acceptable way to hurt the regime was to boycott companies owned by Marcos cronies and not pay taxes as a way of revolting against the government based on the principle "no taxation without representation." Incidentally, please do not forget Cebu was underrepresented in Congress. We only had two congressmen at that time when we should be having four in Cebu City alone.

So even after the Marcoses were gone, this practice remained for the simple reason that many businessmen believe that Cebu was not given the infrastructure that it deserves. It is a chicken and egg situation. If they don't pay taxes, what can government give in terms of infrastructure development? It has been more than five years that the Philippines were under Aquino. Last August 24, he bragged that his government poured P23 billion in infrastructure in Cebu. But no matter how we check those projects, we can only see some P2.3 billion worth in rehabilitation of roads. In a way, Pres. PNoy has cheated us Cebuanos.

What could have motivated these executives to cheat on their taxes? Perhaps one reason is when a couple of years ago, the scam of Janet Lim Napoles was exposed to the public. And when she went to MalacaÒang to "surrender," she was treated more like a celebrity rather than a person wanted by law. Can you imagine someone who corrupted government officials going to the White House and after a few hours, Pres. Barrack Obama escorts her to a prison cell in Police Headquarters?

That was exactly what happened to Napoles, who was personally escorted by President Aquino to Camp Crame to make sure her accommodations were okay. Then Pres. PNoy issued a disclaimer that he never saw or met Mrs. Napoles before, only to be rebuked by the national dailies that showed him with a photo of Mrs. Napoles and her daughter during a celebration at the Mactan's Shangri-La Resort and Spa.

What was PNoy hiding from the Filipino people? Why did the president of the Philippines personally escort to her prison cell a person that he said he never met before? Until now, this issue has been totally forgotten. Thanks to the October 15 earthquake and super typhoon "Yolanda." Yet some idiots still tell me that Pres. PNoy is squeaky clean!

Around 20 senators and 100 congressmen have not yet been indicted by the Department of Justice but Sec. Leila De Lima is running for senator like all the rest of them. Huh! The joke is really on us.

Now that PNoy has only months left in this presidency, we are hearing stories of corruption by government bureaucrats that are happening everywhere. I personally know of a friend, whose business establishment is being "harassed" by the Bureau of Internal Revenue for him to cough up millions of pesos otherwise, there would be a thorough check on his business. I know this friend of mine practices good governance so he refused to succumb to this vermin in the BIR. What was shocking to me was that this BIR personnel was assigned in Mandaue City. Has the corruption in the BIR become so blatant that there is no decency anymore? Worse, Liberal Party congressmen did agree to reduce our taxes, which is the highest in ASEAN so they can steal our tax money some more.

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