BIR collections double as more taxpayers use apps

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) nearly doubled its collections from digital channels to P1.2 billion last year as more and more taxpayers have been settling their dues via online or through apps.

In a report to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, Internal Revenue Deputy Commissioner Arnel Guballa said the amount of taxes collected by the BIR through electronic channels in 2019 jumped 92 percent from P626.4 million in 2018.

The collections rose alongside a climb in the number of transactions—last year’s 446,753 electronic tax payments were three-fifths more than 2018’s 278,602, the Department of Finance (DOF) said in a statement on Thursday.

“The electronic payments were done through the Union Bank online tax payment facility using automated teller machines (ATMs) or debit cards, the PayMaya smartphone app and the PESONet fund transfer service,” Guballa was quoted by the DOF as saying.

“For 2020, among the BIR’s targets are to further simplify its paper application forms and reduce processing times, the number of documentary requirements and signatories for taxpayers to enhance the bureau’s delivery of frontline services and help improve the ease of doing business,” Guballa said.

The BIR is implementing a roadmap that will digitally transform the country’s biggest tax-collection agency and better serve taxpayers by 2030.

The BIR’s vision is to become a “digitally transformed institution, providing convenient, reliable and transparent services to taxpayers, resulting in more resources to provide comfortable and secure lives for Filipinos” 10 years from now.

The roadmap is the BIR’s response to Dominguez’s order that the agency should make all its transactions with clients instantaneous and seamless.

The BIR plans to streamline tax payments to prioritize taxpayers this year, further innovate and elevate the taxpayer experience next year, and automate to allow “anytime-and-anywhere” tax services for taxpayers in 2022.

Among the specific online systems that the BIR will develop under its digital transformation roadmap included e-invoicing and e-receipting, a value-added tax refund system, fuel marking and testing, internal revenue stamps integrated system for alcohol, and electronic BIR forms 2306 and 2307.