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Law should spare no one -- solons PDF Print
Monday, 14 January 2008
THE law should spare no one, especially it concerns with generating resources for the country’s economic development, three opposition lawmakers stressed yesterday.
    
Representatives Roilo Golez (Ind., Parañaque), Teodoro Casiño (Party List, Bayan Muna) and Joel Villanueva (Party List, CIBAC)  cited the Lateral Attrition Law which, they said, should be implemented to the fullest, especially in agencies tasked to collect revenues for government coffers.
   
The three lawmakers zeroed in on the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), noting that the agency failed to meet its target revenue collection in 2007.
   
Golez said the government should be serious in imposing the lateral attrition law that should not stop at the BIR but also cover the Department of Finance which has direct supervision over the tax-collecting agency.

Golez said the axe should also fall on Finance Secretary Margarito Teves whose department has control over the BIR.
   
Under the Lateral Attrition Act of 2005, the President has the power to fire officials of the BIR and the Bureau of Customs if they fail to meet the tax collection target for a particular period.         
   
Casiño noted that in 2007, the BIR was short of P50 billion in its target revenue collection, which placed the agency in a very embarrassing situation especially after the full implementation of the controversial Expanded Value Added Tax (EVAT), a scheme under the supervision of BIR Commissioner Lilian Hefti who replaced Mario Buñag in July 2007 for his failure to meet the agency’s monthly collection target.
   
Villanueva asked  Malacañang to conduct a thorough probe into what he described as the “inefficiency” of officials tasked to generate revenues for the government, a move that he said should focus on Teves, Hefti and BIR Deputy Commissioner for Operations Nelson Aspe.                                 

Source: People’s Tonight by Raul Beltran

Last Updated ( Monday, 14 January 2008 )
 
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