MANILA – The Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) has ordered the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to refund or issue a tax credit certificate of PHP296.15 million to shopping mall and real estate developer firm, SM Investments Corp.
In a 12-page amended decision dated March 11 written by Associate Justice Erlinda P. Uy, the tax court's Third Division granted the ruling on the amount representing the company's excess and unutilized creditable withholding tax (CWT) for 2014.
Revenue officials had opposed the tax credit claiming the company had failed to exhaust administrative remedies before elevating the case to the CTA and that the firm's claim is subject to an administrative investigation by the BIR and that pending such investigation, no grant of refund may be given to petitioner based on the filed claim.
Ruling otherwise, the tax court said while a judicial claim for tax refund must be made within two years, the law "in no wise imply that the CIR (Commissioner of Internal Revenue) must act upon the taxpayer's claim and that the taxpayer shall not go to court before such taxpayer is notified of the CIR's action".
The tribunal noted that the BIR had not acted on the administrative claim for refund from when it was filed in Sept 2015 up to the filing of the judicial claim before the CTA on April 7, 2017. when the two-year prescriptive period is about to end.
Associate Justices Ma. Belen M. Ringpis-Liban and Maria Rowena Modesto-San Pedro concurred. (PNA)
