Philippine leader warns 'tax-avoiding' Chinatown
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Philippine President Benigno Aquino (above) on Friday, March 22, warned the nation's ethnic Chinese businessmen who are failing to pay the correct amount of tax to stop evading the law or face prosecution. -- FILE PHOTO: AFP
MANILA (AFP) - Philippine President Benigno Aquino on Friday, March 22, warned the nation's ethnic Chinese businessmen who are failing to pay the correct amount of tax to stop evading the law or face prosecution.
A recent government investigation led to "strange" and "truly unexpected" findings that just eight per cent of member-firms of the Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce paid taxes, he told the association's annual convention.
Six in 10 individual members paid no taxes at all, he added.
"I have to say I was shocked, to say the least, when I learned this, because that would mean that you are making even less than what I receive every month. And can this be correct?" Mr Aquino said, according to an official transcript.
