Exec wants ‘rotten system’ in BIR changed

A former regional director of the Bureau of Internal Revenue Region 16 yesterday vowed to fight corruption in the regional office and set as an example to other offices in the country.

Former regional director Mustapha Gandarosa said he wants to fight the corruption, which have been allegedly practiced by erring examiners and BIR employees, and eventually help the government earn substantial income in revenue taxes.

Boldly expressing his disgust during a press conference in one of the big hotels in the city, Gandarosa maintained that he was thrown out of office as regional director of RR 16 because of the many reforms he has implemented.

Of the many regional directors that hold office in Cagayan de Oro, only Director Gandarosa was able to establish the biggest and most modern regional office building of the BIR in Mindanao thru a loan he got from Land Bank.

“Talagang pinagkaisahan ako ng mga tao sa loob ng BIR na sangkot sa mga anomalies at kakontsaba ng mga malalaking Chinese businessmen in the city,” the regional director said, adding that because of these massive tax collection campaigns of the bureau many businessmen got angry of him and allegedly masterminded his relieve order which came from the BIR regional headquarters in Manila.

During the press conference, Gandarosa also showed several documents to the media and explained how the modus of alleged BIR personnel are being executed and carried out to mulct money from tax payers and deny the government of the correct taxes which should have been honestly paid.

He said one of the modus allegedly being carried out by erring BIR examiners include duplicating the Official Receipts (ORs) and issued these receipts twice to the unsuspecting tax payers. The original receipt that will carry the small amount will be officially remitted to the coffers of the government, but those fake receipts which are used to collect bigger amounts are those that are allegedly pocketed by corrupt collection officers of the bureau.

Gandarosa added the other modus used by tax examiners include re-printing of the official receipts which came from the National Printing Office (NPO) and left the assigned serial numbers blank which are later numbered using numbering machines. The discrepancies of the two official receipts can be easily traced by comparing the manner the serial numbers are printed.

“Nakita nyo naman na yong pekeng resibo ay madaling ma-trace because comparing the serial numbers would really give you an idea which are fake and which are also genuine,” Gandarosa explained to the media.

He said many of the Chinese businessmen in the city are allegedly evading their real taxes by simply mis-declaring the supposed daily income generation of their companies.

He warned that soon he would be naming the big time companies owned by Chinese businessmen who are depriving the government of the supposed taxes they are to pay.

This paper tried to contact top officials in the region to shed light on the allegations of the former BIR official but to no avail. The BIR personnel involved in Gandarosa’s allegations cannot yet give their side as of this writing.

Posted in: cagayan de oro news