THE Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) opened its first medium taxpayers service office in Quezon City last week, with a mandate to closely monitor compliance in the intermediate levels of the tax base.
According to BIR Assistant Commissioner Marissa O. Cabreros, the office will help to reduce tax filing congestion in the tax bureau’s main office — where the large taxpayer service (LTS) holds office.
The transfer of “medium” taxpayers to the regional offices will relieve the LTS of about 3,000 accounts.
“It cannot handle all of this at the national office, we have a lot of offices so we will be utilizing the regions to monitor the other taxpayers,” she told reporters.
Ms. Cabreros said that medium taxpayers account for some 17-19% of the BIR’s revenue, while the large taxpayers on the other hand represent roughly 60% of overall collections.
“It’s really a huge database. So more or less we will be able to project if there is unusual behavior in the economy,” she said.
“If ever collections are down, at least we know who to focus on, what industry, why collections fell, what happened, are there patterns we can recognize and apply to other areas to improve on their collection,” Ms. Cabreros added.
In Revenue Memorandum Order 17-207 dated July, BIR commissioner Caesar R. Dulay authorized the creation of regional offices to service medium taxpayers.
It includes 12 revenue regions (RR) of the BIR: RR 1 in Calasiao, Pangasinan, RR 4 in San Fernando, Pampanga, RR 5 in Caloocan City, RR 6 in Manila, RR 7 in Quezon City, RR 8 in Makati City, RR 9A in Cavite, Batangas, Mindoro, Romblon, RR 9B in Laguna, Quezon, Marinduque, RR 12 in Negros Island Region, RR 13 in Cebu City, RR 16 in Cagayan De Oro, and RR 19 in Davao City.
The memorandum said that the offices “will monitor the top 500 non-individual taxpayers of the above revenue-regions which satisfy the criteria for large taxpayers under Revenue Regulations 17-2010, but have not been notified by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.”
This year, the BIR – which generates about 80% of total government revenue – is tasked to collect P1.829 trillion. As of August, the tax bureau collected P1.157 trillion, which is equivalent to 63.26% of the target. — Elijah Joseph C. Tubayan
