Doctors slam ‘Gestapo’ tactics of tax collectors

THE Philippine Medical Association on Friday slammed the “Gestapo tactics being used by tax enforcers against its members when checking if they were paying the correct taxes.

“[Doctors] are being harassed and subjected to shame even in front of their patients in their own clinics or offices,” group president Oscar Tinio said.

Still, Tinio welcomed the joint task force put up by his group and Internal Revenue to educate doctors on the payment of the correct taxes and help the bureau achieve its collection targets.

“We hope to achieve a paradigm shift in the mindset of doctors so that they will properly comply with all their tax obligations,” Tinio said.

“All of us doctors are willing to do so.”

The task force was created during the consultative meeting between the association and Internal Revenue in Mandaluyong City on Thursday.

The event was attended by almost a hundred PMA officers.

Deputy Commissioner Estela Sales said their figures showed that professionals, including doctors, had a very low compliance rate when it came to paying taxes.

She said Internal Revenue’s Run Against Tax Evaders program was aimed at making people realize that it paid to pay taxes.

But she said the bureau’s tax enforcers must see to it that they treated everyone courteously.

“We do not condone abuses, and we encourage you to report to us through your organization, the PMA, any misbehavior from any of our people,” Sales said. –Macon Ramos-Araneta, Manila Standard Today