BIR zeroes in on big corporate taxpayers’ record

Bureau of Internal Revenue building. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) said less than half of the biggest corporate entities in the country did not make it to the list of top taxpayers.

In its latest “Tax Watch” advertisement, the BIR said only 39 of the country’s Top 100 corporations in terms of gross revenues for 2012 belonged to the list of top taxpayers for the same year.

The release of the latest advertisement followed an earlier pronouncement by the Department of Finance (DOF), parent agency of the BIR, that tax evasion in the corporate sector could be rampant.

The DOF said tighter scrutiny of the tax compliance of the corporate sector had to be implemented.

Companies that landed in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s list of Top 100 corporations in terms of gross revenues but failed to make it to the BIR’s list of top taxpayers were led by Texas Instruments (Philippines) Inc., Malayan Integrated Industries Corp., Toshiba Information Equipment (Philippines) Inc., Philippine Airlines, Philippine Associated Smelting and Refining Corp., SunPower Philippines Manufacturing Ltd., American Power Conversion Corp., National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, South Premier Power Corp., Cebu Air Inc., and San Miguel Energy Corp.

“Only 39 out of the Top 100 SEC corporations are part of the BIR’s Top 500 non-individual taxpayers for 2012,” the BIR said in the latest weekly print advertisement.

The latest BIR advertisement also showed that some companies that were part of the Top 100 corporations of the SEC also made it to the BIR’s top taxpayers list.

These included Manila Electric Co., Smart Communications, Chevron (Philippines) Inc., Globe Telecom Inc., San Miguel Brewery Inc., Nestle Philippines Inc., PMFTC Inc., Chevron Malampaya LLC, Holcim Philippines Inc., First Gas Power Corp., and Toyota Motor Philippines Corp.

Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima earlier said there was a need to monitor the tax compliance of large corporations, citing the relatively few number of firms covered by the Large Taxpayers Service (LTS) of the BIR.

The LTS is the unit in charge of collecting taxes from “large corporations.” By definition, large corporations or companies covered by the LTS are those that meet certain criteria such as at least P1 million in annual income tax and at least P1 million in annual excise tax.