SC document shows multi-billion-peso Marcos estate tax final, executory in March 1999

The assessment of billions of pesos in estate tax from the family of the late former dictator Ferdinand Marcos became final and executory some 23 years ago, a copy of a Supreme Court document showed.

According to Chino Gaston's report on "24 Oras", GMA News got a copy of the Entry of Judgment which showed that the High Tribunal's ruling on G.R. 120880 to affirm the Court of Appeals decision on the Marcos estate tax in 1994 became final on March 9, 1999.

The entry said that the SC decision became final and executory and was "hereby recorded in the Book of Entries and Judgments."

It was presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. who asked the Supreme Court to review the CA decision which found on November 29, 1994 that the deficiency income and estate taxes assessed on Marcoses were unappealable.

Aksyon Demokratiko, the party of presidential candidate Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko” Moreno, on March 28 asked the SC for a Certificate of Finality as regards the tax liability which is now said to be worth P203.819 billion.

"The tax law allows the [Bureau of Internal Revenue] to file a criminal complaint for willful non-payment," former Presidential Commission on Good Government commissioner Ruben Carranza told GMA News.

"Ibig sabihin ng willful, alam mong may utang ka, alam mong hindi ka nag bayad ng buwis pero ayaw mo talagang magbayad ng buwis," he added.

Carranza said there are unsequestered assets which may be used to settle the estate tax which according to court records, the BIR set in 1991 at more than P23 billion.

GMA News has sought comment from the Marcos camp and the BIR.

A spokesman for the candidate Marcos has repeatedly said that the ownership of the properties which are subject of the estate tax had yet to be settled.

Attorney Vic Rodriguez said the issue was "all politics."

“It’s not a coincidence that rivals of presidential frontrunner Bongbong Marcos are raising this matter in unison a few weeks before the elections. Sadly, this is all about politics,” Rodriguez said.

“Our rivals are misdirecting everyone by claiming that the case has attained finality when the truth of the matter is, it is still pending in court and the ownership of the properties in litigation has yet to be settled,” he added.

Marcos identified the pending cases in his petition before the SC.

In its decision upholding the CA ruling on the estate tax assessment on the Marcoses, the SC said it was "at a loss how these cases are relevant to the matter at issue."

"The mere fact that the decedent has pending cases involving ill-gotten wealth does not affect the enforcement of tax assessments over the properties indubitably included in his estate," a portion of the SC decision read.

"The subject tax assessments having become final, executory and enforceable, the same can no longer be contested by means of a disguised protest," it added. —NB, GMA News