BIR Slaps Renato Reyes (Bayan) with ₱1.05M Tax Evasion Charges

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) on Friday filed a ₱1.05 million tax evasion case against Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) Secretary General Renato Reyes Jr., for failing to pay his personal income taxes since 2009.

BIR legal counsel Atty. Brigido Loyola said Reyes’ failed to file income tax returns especially last year where he made more than ₱5.7 million from three major rallies, including the 2016 Asean Summit where he reportedly earned ₱2.5 million according to court records.

Reyes, a career activist, has denied many times earlier that he is not earning a dime from organizing protests and all of his works are in voluntary basis.

But Loyola said Reyes family expenses are more than his wife’s salary – who is physician working in a public hospital.

From 2009 to 2014, Reyes reportedly filed tax exemptions despite already making decent amount from different protests.

“We cannot exempt an individual who is earming at least ₱1.5 million a year,” Loyola said.
Tax evasion is a serious case under Philippine law and any offender can go to prison if he cannot settle his dues on time.

In case of Mr. Reyes, Loyola said it’s for the court to set deadline but the lawyer said he is confident the judge will give Mr. Reyes a month to settle.

President Duterte said: I remember this man during my college days. During my stay in my alma mater in Mendiola we were always distracted by their rallies. I always heard their loud voices over megaphones near my school which disrupted our studies; classes were suspended because of their nonsense protests. To be fair enough, let us “praise” Reyes’ hard work of making those placards and props and organizing his group with paid members who are clueless about their objective of rallying in the streets. They are causing trouble and inconvenience for many people and we have had enough of Bayan’s presence and battle cry. People like Reyes are a burden to the country; their ideology is one of the reasons why our country is not rapidly developing compared to other countries. It is very frustrating.