Taxpayers now have the option to pay their taxes using the online option called PESOnet.
“The recent launch of the PESOnet-enabled tax payments service marks the start of the use of interoperable digital bills payment for taxes and other utilities in the country,” Finance Undersecretary Antonette C. Tionko said in a statement Tuesday.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas earlier launched PESOnet as part of its National Retail Payment System.
“Under this initiative, the (Bureau of Internal Revenue) BIR is the first government biller institution to pilot and adopt the interoperable digital bills payment service for tax collection. This will help achieve the Duterte administration’s goal of financial inclusion for all Filipinos while improving the ease of doing business in the country,” Tionko said.
According to Tionko, tax payments via PESOnet will be slapped a lower transaction fee.
So far, the state-run lender Land Bank of the Philippines and Yuchengco-led Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. will pilot the tax payments through PESOnet, even as the BIR and the Department of Finance (DOF) have urged other banks to also participate.
During its soft launch last week, Internal Revenue Commissioner Caesar R. Dulay was quoted by the DOF as saying that the BIR “will be able to service more taxpayers and comply with the mandate of the law on the ease of doing business.”
For Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III, the digitization of the BIR and the Bureau of Customs—the country’s two biggest tax-collection agencies—was “in step with President Duterte’s goal of improving the lives of all Filipinos by making it easier for them to accomplish their official transactions and at the same time improve the ease of doing business, which, in turn, will attract more investments and create more jobs.”
“The goal of the PESOnet-enabled project is to set up an interoperable digital bills payment service that is safe, reliable, efficient and will benefit a greater number of Filipinos,” according to Dominguez. —BEN O. DE VERA