Tax inspection proposal a non-starter

A group that supported the passage of the Philippines’ so-called sin tax law has said it is willing to assist the government in conducting inspections of tobacco companies’ facilities to determine their level of compliance with regulations, according to a story in The Philippine Star.

Maricar Limpin, president of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance of the Philippines, said the alliance was supportive of a proposal that aimed to tighten the government’s watch on cigarette companies amid reports of sales of illicit tobacco products.

The idea apparently came from the tobacco industry, however, when PMFTC asked the Bureau of Internal Revenue to install third-party inspectors in all cigarette manufacturing facilities 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to ensure that manufacturers were paying all of the taxes due.

But the idea seems unlikely to get off the ground because the proposal as it currently stands would violate the tax code, according to BIR commissioner Kim Henares.

“The National Revenue Code said that it’s only the commissioner and the officers who can be involved in excise tax functions and doing functions of surveillance, so we cannot have third-party [inspectors],” she said.