BIR shuts down Makati club for tax fraud

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has shut down a club in Makati for allegedly understating its sales by more than P30 million. In a statement, the bureau said it had padlocked MC Bass Entertainment Corp., located at P. Burgos Street in Poblacion, Makati under its Oplan Kandado program. "The corporation was not faithful in its VAT (value-added tax) declarations particularly with respect to the amount of sales it was actually making," BIR Revenue District Officer Teodoro G. Galicia said. "We compared our findings from our surveillance activities on the corporation with what was declared per VAT returns for 2008, and true enough, huge amounts of discrepancies were noted," he said. The bureau said MC Bass had earned P40.2 million from sales last year but it only declared P9.34 million. The underdeclaration was pegged at P30.86 million, or equivalent to 76.76% of its sales. Oplan Kandado aims to suspend the operations of establishments with tax deficiencies. Other grounds for closure are failure to issue receipts or invoices and failure to register operations. Shuttered businesses can only resume operations once they settle their tax dues. The BIR has closed more than 300 businesses since the program was launched in January. — Alexis Douglas B. Romero, BusinessWorld