BIR turns to manual mode as electronic system bogs down

The Bureau of Internal Revenue’s Electronic Filing and Payment System (EFPS) is experiencing technical glitches, prompting the agency to use its manual system for the filing of all tax return.

The BIR said that taxpayers can use the manual filing of all returns due for filing and payment of taxes as provided for in the Memorandum of Agreement with EFPS – Authorized Agent Banks (AABs).

“Authority is given for the manual filing of all returns of EFPS enrolled taxpayers once the Information System Group (ISG) of the BIR through an official memorandum and posted in the BIR web and BIR e-mail the unavailability or limited capability of the system on the deadline date or the day before the deadline,” BIR Commissioner Lilian Hefti yesterday said.

According to her Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) numbered 43-2008, taxpayers can pay under the bank debit system preferably using the bank account enrolled in the EFPS.

If not feasible, they can manually file their return and pay their tax due through the bank debit system using their account with any bank where they maintain their account, even if the depositary bank is an authorized bank within the same revenue region.

These manually filed returns are to be reported to the BIR through the Limited Bank Data Entry System (LBDES) and the Electronic Data Transmission (EDT) by the AABs.

However, taxpayers are still required to file via EFPS their declarations or returns, up to the step of getting the Filing reference Number (FRN) within 15 days from date of manual filing.

The BIR said this is to ensure submission of complete and accurate return data for uploading to the BIR Integrated Tax System (ITS).

The BIR’s EFPS also bogged down Last April 15, 2008, the deadline for the annual filing of income tax returns, making way for the extension of EFPS taxpayers to file manually their returns two days after or on April 17, 2008.