BIR Ruling [DA-223-01]

October 25, 2001 BIR RULING [DA-223-01] Felicito J. Dolar, Jr. 22 Bliss Project, La Paz, Iloilo City S i r : This refers to your letter dated June 26, 2001 which was indorsed to this Office by Revenue Region No. 11, Iloilo City dated June 27, 2001 relative to your claim for informer's reward under Section 282(A) of the 1997 Tax Code for having furnished this Office Confidential Information No. 46-98 dated October 16, 1998 denouncing the Estate of the late Aguedo del Rosario for deficiency estate tax. In connection therewith, please be informed that Section 1 of Finance Regulations No. 1 provides, to wit: "Section 1. Who may qualify as informers for reward. Section 1 of Republic Act No. 2338 provides that (a) An informer must not be an internal revenue or customs official or employee, or other public official; and (b) He must not be related within the sixth degree of consanguinity to an internal revenue or customs official or employee, or other public official. This means that the father, mother, children, grandchildren, grandfather, grandmother, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles , nieces, nephews, first cousins and second cousins of internal revenue and custom officials and employees or other public officials cannot qualify as informer." (emphasis supplied) Section 282(A) of the 1997 Tax Code likewise provides that "any person, except an internal revenue official or employee, or other public official or employee, or his relatives within the sixth degree of consanguinity , who voluntarily gives definite and sworn information, not yet in the possession of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, leading to the discovery of frauds upon the internal revenue laws or violations of any of the provisions thereof, . . . shall be rewarded . . ." DTAcIa It is clear from the aforequoted provisions of law and regulations that a person cannot qualify as informer if he/she is related within the sixth degree of consanguinity to an internal revenue or customs official or employee, or other public official. You are therefore, not qualified as an informer because you have an uncle named Edgar Allan D. Del Rosario, who is a permanent employee of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) holding the position of Revenue Officer IV who entered the Bureau on September 11, 1989, as certified by the Personnel Division of BIR. In view of the foregoing, we regret to inform you that you are not entitled to the payment of the corresponding reward notwithstanding the fact that you are the informer who filed Confidential Information No. 46-98. Very truly yours, Commissioner of Internal Revenue By: (SGD.) MILAGROS V. REGALADO Acting Assistant Commissioner Legal Service