REPORT: Plenty tax breaks for the rich, pues no tax refunds for the poor
By Troy Torres
(Tumon, Guam) If you're running low on cash, don't count on your 2019 tax refund happening soon. If you're a rich tobacco distributor with last names that may rhyme with Parvo and Jimmy Choo, don't worry about your tax liability. The Leon Guerrero administration is turning the story of Robin Hood upside down so that pipe-smoking King John can get his grubby metaphorical hands on what little the poor have left - hope.
In every year of former Gov. Eddie Calvo's terms as governor except his first year, he began paying tax refunds in February. It now is March 4, and Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero is stuck paying refunds filed on September 7 last year.
As a matter of fact, according to the latest filed Income Tax Refund Status Report run on January 2, 2020, GovGuam still owes 5,641 people a prior year tax refund, and isn't even done processing refunds for 4,460 more for tax years 2006 through 2018.
There has been no report filed for January 2020, which would indicate how many 2019 returns have been filed and processed, at least until January 31, 2020.
So what's the hold up? Cash flow, of course. But why? Well, there are a number of factors contributing to strained cash flow. The first of course, is the growing amount of non-discretionary spending; cash obligations like payroll, debt service, remittances to the Retirement Fund, court orders, etc.
The second strain on cash flow is the warped sense of fiscal priorities exhibited by both the administration and the Legislature.
But it's the third strain on cash flow where the difference can be made: More than $100 million in tax breaks, tax credits, and the non-collection of taxes from huge companies owned by the bigwig politically-connected families of this island. Of those bigwig family corporations, at least two owe tens of millions of dollars in tobacco taxes.
Both are connected to the administration.
In her annual state of the island address last week, Ms. Leon Guerrero mentioned an effort to collect some $5 million in overdue taxes. That's odd, because the pricetag in taxes owed by the Calvo family alone for MidPac's tax liability was already neutered from a figure estimated between $50 million and $90 million down to some $17 million during the final leg of the Calvo administration.
The MidPac tobacco tax liability became the subject of a public audit after another tobacco distributor noticed that his company showed up in government reports as having the highest tax liability for tobacco sales. Knowing that MidPac had the market share of tobacco sales because of the brands it distributes exclusively, the competitor made the reporting discrepancy known to certain public officials.
The audit led to news stories on the matter, proposed tax policy by then-Sen. Michael San Nicolas that would ensure the collection of taxes through a cigarette tax stamp, and even a criminal investigation into the matter.
According to a former MidPac employee, he and a team of employees were tasked by MidPac management to destroy five containers of financial documents supporting MidPac's true tax liability in 2018. Kandit attempted to get a response to the allegations from MidPac, but our calls went unanswered.
According to that former employee, one of MidPac's managers is Christine Baleto, the former director of the Department of Administration. Prior to her political appointment, Ms. Baleto also was in charge of another Calvo company - Market Wholesale, and served on the board of directors of the seaport. On a side note, Ms. Baleto was one of the four board members at the time involved in the conspiracy against the Port 7 workers fired in the biggest political witch hunt in the history of the government of Guam.
Ms. Baleto was privy to the inner workings of both the Calvo administration, and the financial management of the government. But she's not the only government financial manager turned Calvo employee over the years.
The Calvos have made a habit of siphoning the most knowledgeable financial managers throughout the government into their empire, and it would seem this family has done so for very strategic reasons.
Leading into the Calvo administration, Calvo's Insurance picked up former budget director Paul Leon Guerrero. Calvo Enterprises hired former budget director Joe Rivera. Andres Jordanou, the former administrator of the Guam Economic Development Authority, also was hired.
As late as last year, Mr. Leon Guerrero appears in public documents lobbying the Guam Legislature for changes in the insurance laws regarding the third-largest contract in the government - the health insurance contract. This follows eight years of bid rigging by the Calvo administration in favor of Calvo's Insurance.
This also follows years of protests from the Calvos and the rest of the insurance industry against the removal of a law allowing insurance companies to skate on upward of $25 million in taxes. Every time a brave lawmaker suggested removing the tax break, the people whispering 'sense' into senators's ears in closed-door consultations by the so-called experts were those whose financial prowess in government was most respected. Luckily for the insurance industry, those trusted financial wizards now work for them.
But $25 million is no drop in the bucket in a $1 billion operation. That money could bring every single overdue tax refund - processed and unprocessed - for prior tax years into the hands of the taxpayers who overpaid right now if that cash was available.
In Gov. Leon Guerrero's plan for aggressive tax collection, she envisions a process and a level of diligence that will collect some $5 million from individual and corporate income tax filers who have not had the ability to pay in previous years. And while that effort is noble and necessary, why are they the people singled out, especially when at least two