Former president Benigno Aquino III and former finance secretary Cesar Purisima were charged yesterday with graft and smuggling the Office of the Ombudsman for allegedly allowing Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. to bring unleaded gasoline into the country without paying the right taxes.
Charged with them are officials of Shell led by chairman Edgar Chua.
Former customs commissioner Napoleon Morales, tax collector Juan Tan, and journalist Lourdes Aclan accused the respondents of depriving the government of excise and value added tax now totaling around P100 billion, including interests and surcharges.
Shell allegedly managed to evade payment of taxes by falsely declaring its unleaded gasoline imports as catalytic cracked gasoline (CCG), light catalytic cracked gasoline (LCCG) and later alkylate from 2004-2009.
The said chemicals are described as so-called blending components in the manufacture of gasoline which are not subject to or covered by internal revenue taxes collected by the Bureau of Customs for the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
According to the complaints, Shell was paying taxes for its gasoline importations but stopped doing so from 2004 to 2009 when it changed its declaration of CCG and LCCG as unleaded gasoline to tetrapropylene and from "exclusive for sale" to "blending component."
An investigation was supposedly conducted on Shell's allegedly fraudulent acts and the results of the same eventually reached Aquino and Purisima.
According to Aclan, he wrote Aquino a letter in July 2012 informing him of the refusal of Purisima and other BOC officials to demand payment of taxes from the fuel company, but his letter was ignored.
Source: Philippine Star
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