Case Digest (G.R. No. 162155)
Facts:
Commissioner of Internal Revenue and Arturo V. Parcero v. Primetown Property Group, Inc., G.R. No. 162155, August 28, 2007, First Division, Corona, J., writing for the Court. Petitioners are the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and Arturo V. Parcero (in his capacity as Revenue District Officer, Revenue District No. 049, Makati); respondent is Primetown Property Group, Inc. The petition is for review on certiorari under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court.In a letter dated March 11, 1999, Gilbert Yap, vice chair of Primetown, applied to the BIR for refund or credit of corporate income tax and creditable withholding taxes paid in 1997 (total P26,318,398.32), asserting that the company sustained losses for that year and thus had no tax liability. Revenue Officer Elizabeth Y. Santos requested additional documents on May 13, 1999; Primetown complied but received no action, so it filed a petition with the Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) on April 14, 2000 (docketed C.T.A. Case No. 6113).
On December 15, 2000 the CTA dismissed Primetown’s petition as barred by the two-year prescriptive period in Section 229 of the National Internal Revenue Code (NIRC), holding that the period began to run on the filing of the final adjusted return on April 14, 1998 and that, under Article 13 of the Civil Code (a year = 365 days; in computing periods exclude first day, include last), the two-year period amounted to 731 days because 2000 was a leap year; the CTA therefore deemed the April 14, 2000 filing late. Reconsideration was denied.
Primetown appealed to the Court of Appeals (CA) (CA-G.R. SP No. 64782). On August 1, 2003 the CA reversed, ruling that Article 13’s rule equating a year to 365 days does not displace the Administrative Code (EO No. 292, 1987) definition of “year” as twelve calendar months and that, under that computation, Primetown’s April 14, 2000 filing fell on the last day of the 24th calendar month and was timely. Petitioners’ motion for reconsideration in the CA was denied on February 9, 2004.
Petitioners brought this Rule 45 petition to ...(Subscriber-Only)
Issues:
- Was Primetown’s petition to the Court of Tax Appeals filed within the two-year prescriptive period under Section 229 of the NIRC (i.e., is the April 14, 2000 filing timely)?
- Which statutory rule governs computation of the two-year prescriptive period — Article 13 of the Civil Code (a year = 365 days) or Section 31, Chapter VIII, Book I of Executive Order No. 292 (a ...(Subscriber-Only)
Ruling:
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Ratio:
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Doctrine:
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