BIR to audit oil firms

As part of efforts to attain its P2.3-trillion collection target for 2019, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) will audit oil companies’ inventories and tightly watch online shopping services to ensure correct tax payments.

In a statement Monday, the BIR said it would conduct physical inventory and stocktaking of petroleum products to establish a sales database through which the country’s biggest tax-collection agency could reconcile and monitor taxpayers.

Also, the BIR said it would extract sales data from online sales transactions on top of the usual manual invoices and receipts.

The BIR will also also undertake post-evaluation of computerized accounting systems, cash register/point–of-sale (POS) machines and other sales-receipting machines.

For the BIR, these enforcement activities are expected to complement voluntary compliance, especially among large taxpayers.

For 2019, the BIR is tasked to collect P1.06 trillion in taxes on net income and other profits, P506.8 billion in value-added tax (VAT), P400.5 billion in excise tax, P112.4 billion in percentage taxes and P177.5 billion in other taxes.

A total of P2.26 trillion must be collected by the BIR from its operations, while the take from non-BIR operations (including final withholding and documentary stamp taxes from government securities transactions) is programmed to reach P73.2 billion.

From the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act, the BIR should collect P79.01 billion from the higher levies slapped on various goods.