The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) said on Friday it will not join a government panel that would audit the financial statements of the three leading oil companies, saying that doing so would violate the tax code.

“The National Internal Revenue Code imposes guidelines and restrictions on how a taxpayer should be audited to protect his interest,” said a top BIR official who refused to be identified.

He made the statement in reaction to the threat of a Manila judge that he might cite for contempt the heads of the BIR, Bureau of Customs and Commission on Audit for continuously defying his order to audit the books of the three oil giants.

Manila Regional Trial Court Judge Silvino Pampilo Jr. had earlier ordered the three agencies to form a panel of auditors that would examine the books of the three major oil players - Shell, Chevron, and Petron - to determine if they operate as a cartel and manipulate petroleum prices.

Pampilo issued the directive based on the petition of the Social Justice Society (SJS) protesting the never-ending increases in oil prices.

The revenue official said that by joining the audit panel, the BIR would be violating the tax code and the agency officials could be dismissed from the service and imprisoned.

He pointed out that the tax code requires that the income tax return of a company should only be audited once a year which the BIR had already done.

“The BIR already lost jurisdiction over many of these cases as the three-year prescriptive period had already lapsed,” he added.

Revenue officials admitted that the agency is not competent in determining the profitability of companies as its sole objective is purely tax collection.

Through the years, the BIR has been treating with confidentiality all financial records of taxpayers and it is always reluctant in sharing it with outsiders, even with other government agencies as such disclosure is a criminal offense punishable with imprisonment.