THE TAX EVASION CASE VS. CORONA

So, BIR Commissioner Kim Henares has filed a tax evasion case against impeached former CJ Corona.  Fine!  That's the government's and the BIR's right and prerogative.  On the other hand, methinks Corona has not been Chief Justice not to know where he stands as far as taxation is concerned when he chose to reveal his dollar and peso bank accounts, which he did not include in his SALN. Likewise, I am sure his lawyers know how to defend him.

I am not a lawyer, and I don't intend to pretend so, or to know more than lawyers, in writing this article.  It's just that my plain common sense cannot seem to reconcile how Corona has evaded paying taxes based on circumstances unearthed during his impeachment trial.  Consider this:

Corona was found guilty of just one thing: his failure to include his peso and bank deposits in his SALN, period., which the Senators have in turn considered as a culpable violation of the Constitution.   It was not proven that those bank deposits were ill-gotten.  According to Corona, ang mga perang iyon ay sinimulan niyang ipunin sa bank since several years ago, hanggang sa dumami nang dumami.  That statement by Corona was never contested by the prosecutors, so the prosecutors are estopped from contesting that -- well, unless they are able to produce evidence that Corona took those moneys from somewhere else.

Repeat, those moneys had been and continued growing in the banks for several years.  Now, under existing laws -- I think everyone of us who has experienced to put some money in the bank fully knows this fact -- all money deposits in the bank are subject to a final income tax of 20% which is in turn debited or deducted from our deposits and appear as such at the end of our monthly bank statements?  That deduction, or withholding tax, is in turn duly remitted by the bank and represent the income tax we have been paying on our bank deposit.  Aba, eh, if the income that Henares had in mind for which Corona allegedly evaded or failed  to pay tax indeed refers to the peso and dollar deposit that Corona has accumulated over the years, then isn't that very clearly DOUBLE TAXATION?  Well, I gladly rest my case if Henares has in mind incomes other than that.

Meanwhile, the Ombudsman has been recently quoted as saying she will support charges of forfeiture of Corona's assets arising from this case.  Again, I repeat, I am not a lawyer, but as I recall from my humble Accountancy practice before I retired, once assets may only be forfeited in favor of the government if those assets were proven to be ill-gotten.  Ang PCGG nga, up to now that it is about to bow out, has failed so many times to forfeit Marcos' assets, di ba?

As things are, I am sure Henares, the Ombudsman and PNoy's lawyers -- as well surely as Corona's lawyers -- fully realize that the behavior of PNoy's government in this record are intended "for the public eyes only' as an instrument of persecution, rather than to satisfy the ultimate objectives of true justice.