Gov’t nets P5.55B from tax amnesty programs

The three ongoing tax amnesty programs, which will all end in June next year, have so far yiel­ded P5.55 billion in incremental revenues, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) officials said.

Internal Revenue Commissioner Caesar Dulay and Deputy Commissioner Arnel Guballa said in separate text messages on Tuesday that the tax amnesty on delinquencies, which was further extended to June 30, 2021, thus far generated an additional P3.5 billion since it started in April last year.

The officials added that the two-year estate tax amnesty, which began in June last year, allowed the BIR to collect P1.85 billion.

Also, Dulay said the BIR’s voluntary assessment and payment program (VAPP) for unpaid 2018 taxes collected P205 million to date. VAPP was also extended until June next year.

The two tax amnesty programs formed part of the Republic Act No. 11213 or the Tax Amnesty Act of 2019, signed by President Duterte last year, while VAPP was a BIR initiative launched in September amid the pandemic-induced recession that weakened revenue collection.

The first-ever tax amnesty on delinquencies in the country covered all national taxes—capital gains tax, documentary stamp tax (DST), donor’s tax, excise tax, income tax, percentage tax, value-added tax and withholding tax—for taxable years 2017 and earlier.

Under this amnesty program, delinquencies and assessments that have become final and executory will have an amnesty rate of 40 percent of the basic tax assessed.

A higher rate of 50 percent will be slapped against tax cases still subject to the courts’ final judgment.

An amnesty rate of 60 percent will apply to pending criminal cases with criminal information filed at the Department of Justice or the courts for tax evasion and other criminal offenses under the Tax Code, with or without assessments duly issued.

In the case of withholding agents that withheld taxes but did not remit these to the BIR, they will pay 100 percent of the basic tax assessed.

Estate tax amnesty, meanwhile, allowed the BIR to collect only 6 percent of the decedent’s total net estate at the time of death, for deaths registered on or before Dec. 31, 2017.

However, the actual collections from these two amnesty programs to date were dwarfed by earlier Department of Finance (DOF) estimates—the DOF last year projected additional revenues from estate tax amnesty to reach P6.3 billion, while delinquencies amnesty were supposed to generate a bigger P21.3 billion.

While RA 11213 paved the way for the delinquencies and estate tax amnesty program, Mr. Duterte had vetoed a general tax amnesty pending the lifting of bank secrecy for tax purposes and the automatic exchange of information. INQ