The Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) has dismissed the petition for P6 million tax refund sought by a firm that recruits qualified Filipino seafarers for employment by foreign shipping companies.
Dismissed was the petition filed by BW Shipping Philippines, Inc. against the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in the decision written by Associate Justice Henry S. Angeles of the tax court's third division.
BMW Shipping renders manpower services to foreign shipping companies. Its services include the screening, recruitment, and deployment of qualified Filipino seafarers.
The CTA ruled that BW Shipping "failed to file its application for VAT (value-added tax) refund with the correct office of the BIR and, thereby, failed to timely file its administrative claim for refund."
The tax court reminded that “the first requirement to be proven is the timely filing by the claimant of the administrative claim.”
It noted that the petition for review that was filed on Aug. 17, 2020 and sought the refund of P6,146,543.28 that represented “unutilized input Value-Added Tax (VAT) for the taxable year 2018.”
It pointed out that the Revenue Regulation (RR) of Republic Act (RA) No. 10963, the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act, mandates that "claims for input refund of direct exporters shall be exclusively filed with the VAT Credit Audit Division (VCAD)."
“Petitioner does not deny that it filed its application for VAT refund before RDO (Revenue District Office) No. 49-North Makati” the court said as it pointed out that "petitioner failed to explain, much less justify, its error.”
The CTA also said: “Petitioner's failure to file its application at the VCAD, the correct BIR office, results in a total failure to file an administrative claim. An application made at the wrong office is deemed not made nor filed. Petitioner's failure to file before the VCAD its application is fatal to its case since it is the correct office that has jurisdiction over its claim. Consequently, petitioner failed to prove that it timely filed its administrative claim within the two-year prescriptive period."