BIR shrugs off traders’ gripe about new receipts

The Bureau of Internal Revenue has shrugged off the complaints of businessmen on the use of a new set of receipts and will implement the appropriate regulation on July 1 as scheduled.

According to Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares, the tax bureau believes that the country’s business sector already has been given enough time to prepare for Revenue Regulation 18-2012.

The regulation was issued by the BIR last year and was publicly announced through newspaper publication last January.

“The full implementation of RR 18-2012 requiring the issuance and use of new sets of receipts [starting] July 1, 2013, shall proceed as scheduled. We believe that six months is enough preparation for everyone to comply with such requirement,” Henares said in a statement issued on Tuesday.

Under RR 18-2012, all businesses operating in the country should apply for new authority to print (ATP) receipts with the BIR not later than April 30. The businesses must then issue and use the new receipts starting July 1.

Also, businesses must secure their receipts only from BIR-accredited printing companies. BIR employees and their relatives are disqualified from offering the printing service.

Those who failed to apply for ATP on or before April 30 would face a penalty of P1,000. Those that fail to issue the new receipts starting July 1 will be slapped a penalty of as much as P50,000.

The BIR said the regulation would solve serious problems related to receipts. These include the proliferation of fake receipts that are being sold to tax evaders and smugglers, and the acts of some unscrupulous BIR personnel whose relatives own companies that print receipts.

Bureau officials said that some BIR personnel have been giving taxpayers a hard time securing ATP. The taxpayers are reportedly being forced to tap the printing services offered by the BIR workers’ relatives.

But several businessmen are saying that the BIR is being hasty in implementing the new regulation on receipts.

Sergio Ortiz-Luis, head of the Philippine Exporters Confederation and officer of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told the Inquirer last week that members of the two groups have urged the BIR to put the regulation on hold.

He said the BIR should have given the business sector at least a year to prepare for the new regulation.

PCCI on Monday filed its formal request for the BIR to delay the implementation of RR 18-2012, but to no avail.