Court of Tax Appeals denies firm's claim for P10.33M tax credit
The Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) has denied the petition filed by SL Harbor Bulk Terminal Corporation to compel the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to issue tax credit for P10.33 million as alleged erroneously paid taxes.
SL Harbor filed its administrative claim for tax credit on June 26, 2020 for P25.16 million.
The firm said the BIR erroneously taxed it for the importation of bunker fuel and diesel sold to tax-exempt entities registered with the Board of Investments (BOI), Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), and Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) from April 1 to June 30, 2018.
It reduced its claim to P10.33 million. When the BIR denied its claim, it filed a petition before the CTA on June 30, 2020.
The CTA's second division denied the petition.
It said that since the allegedly paid excise taxes were made from May 15 and 18, 2018 and June 7 and 8, 2018, the proper time for SL Harbor to file its administrative and judicial claims are from May 15 and 18, 2020 and June 7 and 8, 2020.
"Based on these provisions, petitioner's administrative claim for tax credit filed on June 26, 2020 before the BIR and its judicial claim filed before this court on June 30, 2020 already fell outside the two-year prescriptive period," the CTA said.
Regardless of the time of filing, the CTA also found that SL Harbor failed to provide valid grounds for the court to grant its claim for tax credit. "It is incumbent upon petitioner to clearly show the factual basis for claiming that it is entitled to a tax credit... and the petitioner failed to do so in the present case," it said.
The 22-page decision was written by Associate Justice Lanee S. Cui-David with the concurrence of Associate Justice Jean Marie A. Bacorro-Villena.