PROSECUTION moves to offer the income tax return of Chief Justice Renato Corona as evidence attached, as it were, to his Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth will be opposed at today’s assumption of the CJ’s impeachment trial. So shall the defense panel object when the Revenue Commissioner is presented as hostile witness to the impeachment court.

The appearance of Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares is “irrelevant,” not to mention redundant since to be released only with the approval of President Benigno Aquino III, hailed as the super-advocate of the CJ’s impeachment, or words to this effect by Tranquil Salvador III, defense panel member.

With the Philippine Star yesterday, however, Salvador said “the defense will possibly object or approve the order to present the ITRs of the CJ and members of his family this week (depending) on the purpose and how the prosecution will present them.”

Salvador acknowledged that in making public the CJ’s SALN and ITR, the prosecution wants the public to make the conclusion that Corona enriched himself in office even as it uses Henares’s testimony to bolster allegations that the CJ’s income was not enough to pay for his multi-million-peso property acquisitions.

Alright, but then again Salvador stressed that the defense “definitely would oppose the presentation of the BIR chief in person as a witness. Resident kibitzer Jose chuckled about defense lead counsel Serafin Cuevas shrilly asking for a “verification” of Henares’s testimony --  consequently some personal affirmation of her sworn statement.

In any case, it just might become unavoidable for the prosecution, possibly for the defense as well, to summon the BIR chief to help determine what entries in Corona’s SALN should be taxable. Offhand, I could see some capital gains tax getting computed on a couple of property transactions of Corona.

Prominent lawyer Romulo Macalintal, while noting some of the CJ’s questioned SALNs could be in his favor, disclosed that an “P8-million sale of a property by Corona to a certain spouses Rivera” would explain the increase in Corona’s 2009 net worth of P14 million to P22 million in 2010.

“If we add the sale of P8 million received by the Coronas from the proceeds of the said sale in 2009, it justifies the P8-million increase of Corona’s net worth from P14 million to P22 million in 2010,” Macalintal said.

Another transaction, prosecutor Rep. Miro Quimbo said, showed the Corona couple’s property acquisitions and sale are “intertwined,” contrary to the CJ’s claim “he had nothing to do” with the properties acquired by his children.”

The Marikina solon-prosecutor said the Coronas sold their 1,200- square-meter lot in the upscale La Vista subdivision in Quezon City, where former President now Rep. Gloria Arroyo resided prior to her hospital detention, to their daughter Carla for P18 million late in 2010. They bought it for P11 million in 2003, thus, sold at a P7-million profit.

If liable for capital gains tax, how much did the Coronas pay for the total gain of P15 million? Or by how much taxable additional asset did they become liable?

Available to testify last Wednesday at the Senate impeachment court, BIR Commissioner Kim Henares was re-scheduled to appear today before presiding senator-judge Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile. Heaven help her upon stepping up to be at the tender mercies of lead defense counsel Serafin Cuevas.