Banking hours extension sought to accommodate tax payments

The Bureau of Internal Revenue has required banks authorized to collect taxes on behalf of the government to extend their operating hours and increase their personnel to accommodate tax payments from the public as the April 15 deadline for the filing of income tax returns draws near.

In a public notice, the BIR said authorized agent banks (AABs) were tasked to extend their daily operating hours up to 5 p.m. until April 15.

“(AABs must) accept tax payments from people who are already within the bank premises before 5 p.m.,” the BIR said in the notice.

In addition, AABs are required to be open on two Saturdays, April 6 and 13, to serve those paying their taxes.

The BIR likewise said banks were required to accommodate tax payments even from people who were not their clients.

AABs, it said, must assign additional personnel and additional counters to ensure the servicing of all taxpayers.

In support of the BIR’s tax collection efforts, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has issued a memorandum to banks directing them to operate on extended hours and on the two Saturdays specified by the tax collection agency.

“To assist the BIR in receiving tax payments, AABs are authorized to extend their banking operations from 9 to 5 p.m. until April 15,” the BSP said in the memorandum signed by Deputy Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr.

The BSP likewise echoed in the memo the directive for banks to operate on the two coming Saturdays.

Because many taxpayers in the country tend to file their income tax returns and pay their taxes on or near the deadline, April has been a month when the BIR’s collections are higher than most months of the year.

Being responsible for collecting at least 60 percent of the national government’s total revenue needs for a year, the BIR is pressured to increase its collections every year to achieve the state’s deficit reduction goal.

For 2013, the BIR is tasked to collect P1.253 trillion in taxes, up from its 2012 target of P1.066 trillion.

Last year, the BIR was slightly short of its target, collecting only P1.058 trillion. The amount, however, was up by 14.5 percent year on year from P924.15 billion.

In the first two months of this year, the BIR collected P169.24 billion in taxes, an amount tax officials believe is on track to meeting the full-year goal. The amount also was up year on year by 10 percent from P153.84 billion.

The national government has set a goal of keeping its deficit at or below 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product for this year.