BIR to examine large taxpayers

Collects P881 B but below target of P1.05 T

MANILA, Philippines - The government wants to examine how the “big guys” are paying their taxes.

Aside from top companies, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) should consider making an office to track tax payments by the so-called “high net worth individuals,” Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said.

“High net worth individuals are still lagging behind in terms of their share in nation building, in terms of their share in paying taxes,” Purisima said during yesterday’s tax launch of the BIR Large Taxpayers Service (LTS).

“My proposal is to have a high net worth large taxpayer group similar to the LTS,” he added.

The LTS, which groups 2,320 corporations as of last year, is the BIR office in charge of collecting and monitoring taxes from the country’s biggest corporations based on different criteria.

Under Revenue Regulations 1-1998, a taxpayer could be classified under LTS if its market capitalization is worth at least P300 million or its gross receipts totaled at least P1 million.

Purisima did not specify how the government could classify a high net worth taxpayer, saying however that “foundations” may be laid out by the outgoing administration.

“This is an idea that we would like to leave behind,” Purisima said.

He explained the government should expand its tax base and for the BIR to continuously invest in information technology to boost its collections.

As of last year, the LTS alone accounted for 61.15 percent of the entire BIR collections. Only 36.26 percent came from revenue regions nationwide, while over two percent were from non-BIR operations.

The LTS collected P881.48 billion last year, up 6.85 percent from P825 billion in 2014, BIR data showed.

The figure, however, was 16-percent below the BIR’s first trillion-peso goal. The 2016 goal was pegged at P1.32 trillion.

“This demonstrates how narrow our tax base it...We need to expand this because this country is not just about 2,000 companies,” Purisima said.

For his part, Internal Revenue assistant commissioner Nestor Valeroso said the LTS would strive to “double our efforts” to attain this year’s target.

“We must check the economic movements in the economy. We will apply programs fitted to unlock the potentials in the economy,” Valeroso said in a speech.

The BIR accounts for 80 percent of government revenues.