Cagayan de Oro traders keep cool amid threats of legal charges for Sera Protesta

October 23, 2008

By Lizanilla J. Amarga

The Coalition of Chambers of Commerce and Industry Association in Northern Mindanao remained unfazed over threats that legal charges will be filed against them for economic sabotage in connection to the Oct. 22 “Sara Protesta.”

Coalition spokesperson Atty. Oscar Musni said he heard Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR-10) regional director Mustapha Gandorsa issue what he described as “empty threats” over radio interviews.

“My principals believe that there is no legal basis for economic sabotage. Director Gandarosa can file if he wants, he is free to do so,” reads his text message to Gold Star Daily yesterday.

Musni said their coalition is mulling over whether or not they will file charges against Gandarosa themselves in court.

Already, Musni said they have written a complaint against Gandorsa to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo which was also furnished to the Secretary of Finance Gary Teves and to the newly-installed BIR commissioner Guillermo Parayno.

He said they presented “focal points” that outline the need to immediately replace Gandarosa among them are how the harassment in the collection of taxes is something they can no longer suffer through and BIR-10′s insistence to use an “unfair and unreasonable” procedure in assessing taxes to be collected from local traders.

Musni explained that the members of the coalition are not against tax collection citing how for the past three consecutive years BIR-10 ranked among the top three in national top revenue collection district in the national level and the highest in the entire Mindanao island.

“That alone proves that Cagayan de Oro businessmen are cooperative in collection drives, so why the need to harass them to collect more? This is our first focal point,” he said adding that for 2008, BIR-10 has asked to increase the monthly remittances by 35 percent and that businessmen “readily adhered obediently otherwise had they resisted the protests would have happened early this year.”

Musni said there second focal point was on how the tax assessment billed against businesspeople is based on a “hastily gathered data” and thus resulting to unfair amounts.

He said the daily sales under surveillance for 15 days is “averaged” and made the basis for the total sales for 2007 when there were inevitable fluctuations in the sale of goods and services on that year which should have been considered and properly computed by BIR-10.

Also, Musni said the sales data of the business establishment is considered income if it didn’t incur loss or any expenses and that this is the same data to compute the Value-Added Tax (VAT) which was used by BIR-10 to for the first quarter of 2008.

“These two audits overlap each other to be paid within the same period. Given the difficult times and this uncomfortable feeling of being harassed by our current internal revenue system pushed all CDO businessmen to unite and act as one,” he said.

But a BIR-10 official who requested anonymity saying he was not the proper authority to speak out explained that Musni’s computation is not true.

He added that the tax assessments for each establishment in the city can check with their records, if they are in doubts with the amounts levied against them.

Earlier, Gandarosa for his part denied allegations that he or any of his staff is harassing any trader in the city and had issued a challenge for the coalition to bring them to court. He added that they have been and will continue to do what their superiors have ordered them to do.

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Written by admin · Filed Under Cagayan de Oro