BIR files raps versus four ‘ghost’firms

THE Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) on Thursday filed criminal complaints against four “ghost” firms said to have caused the government to lose an estimated P25.5 billion in taxes.

Buildforce Trading Inc., Crazykitchen Foodtrade Corp., Decarich Supertrade Inc. and Redington Corp. were said to have violated Sections 254, 255 and 267 of the Tax Code by selling fraudulent receipts.

The case was filed before the Department of Justice by BIR Commissioner Romeo Lumagui.

“We are just getting started,” the BIR chief said in a statement.

“The financial magnitude of this syndicate issuing fictitious receipts is alarming. They are profiting from businesses through convincing their clients to ghost our tax authority,” he added.

The filing of the complaints followed a December raid at a condominium unit in Quezon City where thousands of receipts were seized.

“I have set my marching orders to the BIR Legal Group to file criminal charges against the individuals behind these companies,” Lamagui said.

The BIR said the four firms were “only established for the sole purpose of selling fictitious sales invoices and/or receipts to their buyers for the latter’s claim of false and anomalous purchases.”

Lumagui said that while the receipts were registered, the transactions were illegitimate.

“There is no real transaction being done ... these corporations have no legitimate businesses other than selling receipts to be used by other business owners to avail of deductions,” he said in Filipino.

This allegedly led to the government losing deficiency income taxes amounting to P17.63 billion and deficiency value-added tax amounting to P7.91 billion, inclusive of surcharges and interest, over 2019 to 2021.