The Land Registration Authority (LRA) has agreed to furnish the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) with the list of properties of individual and business taxpayers suspected of under declaring income to save on tax payments.
LRA Deputy Administrator Ronald Ortille and BIR Commissioner Caesar Dulay signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) requiring the former to submit to the bureau upon request all properties registered under the name of the taxpayer facing investigation.
The accord stipulated that the confidential information obtained by the BIR "shall be used exclusively for assessment, collection and enforcement activities."
Dulay stressed that the information supplied by the LRA will be treated with utmost confidentiality and in compliance with the Data Privacy Act.
The BIR warned that revenuers caught disclosing the information to third parties will be dismissed from the service and sent to jail for unlawful divulgence of secret information pursuant to Section 270 of the Tax Code.
BIR insiders said the MOA is an effective tool in flushing out the hidden income of taxpayers through the so-called net worth method of investigation.
The procedure calls for the matching of declared earnings with acquired assets and acquisitions that can't be supported with documents will be considered untaxed wealth.