By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

GOVERNOR Felix P. Camacho recently signed into law a bill creating a legal office within the Department of Revenue and Taxation, but in the absence of an appropriation, it would be impossible to fulfill such mandate, DRT director Art Ilagan said yesterday.
“They passed a bill that has no funding allotment. I’m looking at a shortfall in my department’s budget,” Ilagan said. “How can I spend money that I don’t have?”
Bill 353, now Public Law 28-175, creates the Office of the Guam Territorial Income Tax Attorney to represent the government of Guam in tax litigation and give legal advice to DRT on tax laws and other legal matters.
“When the Legislature passed the bill, they didn’t consider the cost of creating such an office,” Ilagan said.
He said the establishment of the office, which requires the recruitment of a principal attorney, an assistant attorney and their legal staff, will cost about $300,000.
“We can hire weak or average lawyers for less. But I want to hire the best attorneys because we are dealing with hard cases,” Ilagan told Variety.
“We need money to make it happen. One option to find money within my department is to cut my staff, but I can’t do that considering our heavy workload,” he added.
Ilagan asked senators to immediately appropriate funds for the tax attorney’s office, reminding them of DRT’s pending tax litigation, including cases that involve prominent local companies like Mobil Oil, Bank of Guam, Hotel Okura, and InterPacific Resorts Corp., as well as 20 non-litigation cases.
Since DRT has no resident attorney, Ilagan said the department has no other choice but to seek the assistance of Attorney General Alicia Limtiaco occasionally on cases that require immediate attention.
Last year, the Attorney General’s Office withdrew from all pending government tax cases as a result of a federal court ruling which held that the governor “has authority over the enforcement of tax matters, and thus, may dictate the litigation strategy of this matter.”
The federal court upheld the governor’s authority to hire its own legal counsel, shooting down then Attorney General Douglas Moylan’s argument that his office had the sole authority to handle government tax cases and other legal matters involving GovGuam agencies.