ON the first day of his trial for a tax evasion case before the Court of Tax Appeals, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona on Wednesday raised possible lapses committed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
The camp of Corona challenged the integrity of the probe and the filing of the tax evasion case filed on Aug. 30, 2012.
Corona questioned the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s National Investigation Division’s investigation, saying that it only had two weeks to conduct a thorough probe on May 30, 2012, or two days before the investigating team was able to obtain a copy of Corona’s waiver on May 30, 2012.
BIR-NID only based its allegations on his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth and his records with the Land Transportation Office on Aug. 16, 2012.
A witness from the BIR-NID, Sixto Dy, testified that BIR created an investigating team to dig deeper into Corona’s alleged false tax payments.
Another witness, Claire Corpuz, a former employee of BIR Revenue District Office 32, also took the witness stand.
The defense panel, however, pointed out that the BIR-NID already requested access to Corona’s bank accounts on May 28, 2012, two days before investigators secured a copy of Corona’s waiver on May 30.
Corona is facing tax evasion charges for his failure to file his income tax return and attempting to evade payment of taxes.
The next trial is set on Feb. 29.