Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. yesterday asked finance and revenue authorities to exercise transparency in sponsoring the "Premyo sa Resibo Raffle Project," a press release from his office said.

This will make it an effective means of encouraging the public to demand receipts for products that they purchase and services rendered, as well as of preventing commercial establishments from shortchanging the government of the sales taxes due that they should pay and remit.

Pimentel said the Department of Finance and Bureau of Internal Revenue must be commended for launching this promotional project in mid-2006, which is intended to boost tax collection drive and plug the tax leaks due to non-issuance of receipts and misdeclaration of sales.

However, he said, the "Premyo sa Resibo Raffle Project" is in danger of losing steam and of failing to meet its goal if the public is not informed about the winners of the raffle and how much cash prizes they have won for each draw, the press release said.

Noting that newspapers and broadcast networks do not bother to carry the results of every raffle draw, Pimentel said "that is the problem because any government project, to be backed up by the people must be known to the people."

Under the rules of the contest, a consumer should text to the BIR, using his or her own cellphone, the taxpayer identification number and amount of purchase appearing in the sales receipt. Pimentel said he was told that the entries to the raffle contest had already reached almost 92 million as of last week.

But Pimentel said that since the results of the raffle are not publicized, the participating consumers have no way of knowing who are the winners, the press release said.

"Apparently, there is no transparency as to who won. How can the public interest in the raffle project be sustained if the names of the winners are not disseminated through the media?" he said.

The minority leader said the BIR should have a way of quantifying the incremental increase in tax revenue collection as a result of the raffle contest to determine if it is really succeeding.

"That will be helpful especially in terms of telling the people that 'this is a project that you can support and this is the effect of the project.' In other words, between the dream and the fulfillment, there must be an assurance from our government and that it is producing the desired results," he said.*

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