4th District solon backs sugar coops
BACOLOD CITY -- Negros Occidental Fourth District Representative Jeffrey Ferrer is supporting the sugar cooperatives based in his district that is locked in legal battle with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) regarding their refusal to pay the 12% Value Added Tax (VAT).
Ferrer said though there are questions of law since both parties are having its own interpretation of the law but generally this small group of sugarcane farmers must be protected and spare from the perception that they are hiding something.
The Ma-ao Parish Multi-Purpose Cooperative, a 525-strong cooperative composed of agrarian reform beneficiaries chaired by Fr. Arman Onion, is one of the 13 sugar cooperatives in Negros Occidental who have refused to pay the 12 % Expanded Value Added Tax because they consider it illegal.
BIR Region 12 Director Rodita Galanto said the sugar cooperative "failed to submit their book of accounts and other accounting records to facilitate the speedy examination of its income and tax liabilities."
Onion stressed that sugar cooperatives are exempted from paying taxes based on section 109 of the Tax Reform Act of 1997 and section 4, 109-1 of the EVAT Law itself.
"The continued attempt of the BIR to collect the 12 percent EVAT from their sugar as harassment and selective because not all sugar cooperatives received a letter of authority from the tax agency," Onion added.
"We cannot sell our sugar, if this continues. There is no bidding yet because the (other) traders would not submit their bids with this problem facing us," Onion said.
Galanto also challenged the sugar coops to submit their List of Buyers before signing of the Authority Allowing the Release of Refined Sugar (ARRS).
The regional director is asking why it is very hard for the coops to comply the requirements of law if they want to be exempted for them also to grant the tax exemption as provided.
When Ferrer was asked on the alleged reports that big planters are using the cooperatives for other hidden interest, the solon said that it should be investigated and pinpointed by the bureau and file appropriate charges against the alleged tax evaders.