ONE of the country’s largest luxury car importer was ordered to explain duty and tax deficiencies amounting to P233.821 million accumulated throughout 2015, the Bureau of Customs said Saturday.
Acting Collector of the Manila International Container Port Antonio Meliton officially wrote Auto Nation president Felix Ang that his company was found to be deficient of approximately P233.821 million in unpaid duties and taxes, accumulated throughout 2015.
Auto Nation imported 138 units of Mercedez-Benz units (comprised of A250, B180, B200, E250, E400, CLS400, CLA200, GLA200, S400L, and S500 models) in 15 shipments last year, and only paid P196.529 million in customs duties.
Based on the standard rules and computation of the BoC, however, the amount should have been close to P432 million.
In line with the BoC’s continued drive to improve collection revenues and to hold errant taxpayers accountable for their past offenses, the agency recently sent a demand letter to the Auto Nation Group Inc. (formerly CATS Motors Inc.).
Auto Nation is the exlusive distributor of Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram automobiles in the country.
The questioned shipments coincide with Auto Nation’s designation as a “premium mobility partner” that provided vehicles for delegates to the 2015 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.
For the 2015 Apec, Auto Nation supposedly provided Mercedes-Benz S-Class and E-Class sedans for summit delegates, but it was not clear whether the questioned shipments were part of the ones made for the Apec summit.
In 2013, Auto Nation’s predecessor CATS Motors Inc. was recommended for closer investigation for possible tax evasion by six officers of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, but the Memorandum was never signed by then BIR Commissioner Kim Henares.
For the month of September, the Manila International Container Terminal posted a collection revenue of P10.583 billion based on initial reports, close to its target of P10.601 billion. The BoC as a whole netted P33.95 billion last month, missing its P35.79-billion goal by 5.14 percent.
