The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) will look into the bank accounts of deceased people to examine whether their heirs paid correct estate taxes to the government, Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima said.
In an interview with reporters, Purisima said the BIR will reexamine estate taxes filed in the last five years and verify these data to the deceased’s bank accounts.
Purisima is confident that the move will not violate the bank secrecy law, saying “when you file estate with the BIR, you actually waive your bank secrecy.”
“One of the interesting things [BIR Commissioner Kim S. Jacinto-Henares] told me, and I didn’t know about this until she told me, is that bank secrecy is lifted when someone dies and when you file estate with the BIR,” Purisima said.
“That’s what we’re going to do now, we’re going to go back five years on all these estate taxes. Those who still have a chance to amend their estate tax collection, we strongly encourage you to amend your estate tax collection,” he added.
Purisima has been appealing to the public, especially to the wealthy people, to pay the correct estate taxes, noting that government’s revenue collection from estate tax averaged only P800 million to P1 billion annually, which he said as too low.
Purisima said his goal is to increase estate tax collection to P50 billion annually by the end of President Aquino’s term in 2016. Estate tax is a 20 percent tax imposed on a deceased person’s assets, which are transferred to his lawful heirs at the time of death. “We’ll be writing the banks, so that they can provide us the information. Obviously that will take a while because as you know, that covers a lot of people because we’ll do it nationwide,” Purisima said.
Banking and Finance
Chino S. Leyco
June 24, 2013
The Manila Bulletin
Purisima is confident that the move will not violate the bank secrecy law, saying “when you file estate with the BIR, you actually waive your bank secrecy.”
“One of the interesting things [BIR Commissioner Kim S. Jacinto-Henares] told me, and I didn’t know about this until she told me, is that bank secrecy is lifted when someone dies and when you file estate with the BIR,” Purisima said.
“That’s what we’re going to do now, we’re going to go back five years on all these estate taxes. Those who still have a chance to amend their estate tax collection, we strongly encourage you to amend your estate tax collection,” he added.
Purisima has been appealing to the public, especially to the wealthy people, to pay the correct estate taxes, noting that government’s revenue collection from estate tax averaged only P800 million to P1 billion annually, which he said as too low.
Purisima said his goal is to increase estate tax collection to P50 billion annually by the end of President Aquino’s term in 2016. Estate tax is a 20 percent tax imposed on a deceased person’s assets, which are transferred to his lawful heirs at the time of death. “We’ll be writing the banks, so that they can provide us the information. Obviously that will take a while because as you know, that covers a lot of people because we’ll do it nationwide,” Purisima said.
Banking and Finance
Chino S. Leyco
June 24, 2013
The Manila Bulletin
