Officials of engineering firm ACL Industries face tax fraud charges

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has ordered the filing of criminal charges against the top officials of a Makati-based engineering firm for defrauding the government P143 million in taxes. Facing tax evasion charges are ACL Industries President Dexter Frederico Ceriales, Vice-President Helen Lagura and Treasurer Rosalinda Mendoza, BIR Deputy Commissioner Gregorio Cabantac said on Thursday. The tax agency investigated ACLI, which sells engineering equipment, and supplies. In its complaint before the DOJ, the BIR said the company had earned $3.4 million in 1999 but failed to declare the sale in its income tax return for the year. "After our investigation, it was ascertained that there was a deliberate attempt on the part of ACLI to defraud the government of taxes," said Cabantac, who heads the BIR's Run After Tax Evaders program. Last December, the BIR exceeded its P60-billion collection goal by over P3 billion. BIR Commissioner Joel Tan-Torres traced this to intensified enforcement of its anti-tax fraud program. The program gained several criminal convictions at the Court of Tax Appeals and other courts, and stepped up monitoring of bazaars with tax laws last month. Tan-Torres said the BIR would come up with a reinvigorated anti-tax fraud program to help them meet their 2010 collection target of P830 billion. He has also ordered Cabantac to coordinate with the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) of the police in the surveillance, investigation and prosecution of tax evaders. The tax bureau had incurred a P56.5-billion shortfall as of November, collecting P681.9 billion against a target of P738.4 billion. If the bureau managed to surpass its December target by P3 billion, the collection gap for the entire year of 2009 should have eased to at least P53.5 billion. — GMANews.TV