BIR to tighten rules on pros, self-employed

MANILA, Philippines – The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) will tighten its rules on professionals and self-employed individuals to boost tax collections by P140 billion a year, Commissioner Kim Henares said over the weekend.

She said the agency hopes to improve revenue collections from this group of earners, noting that professionals and self-employed individuals earn a lot but some do not remit taxes.

Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said in a separate interview that at present, there are roughly 700,000 professionals and self-employed individuals. He said government is able to collect only P7 billion from this segment.

On the other hand, he said if the government is able to raise collections from these individuals to P200,000 each, tax revenue from this segment would increase to P140 billion.

Henares said there would be stricter monitoring of the income-generating activities of these individuals. Professionals and self-employed individuals such as doctors and lawyers do not always issue receipts, based on the findings of the BIR.

The BIR has been having a difficult time plugging the budget deficit. Last May, the agency collected P88.15 billion or 1.7 percent below the target of P89.72 billion for the period.

However, compared to revenues in May last year of P79.05 billion, the BIR’s collections last month were 11.5 percent or P9.10 billion higher.

Henares recognized that there are a lot of measures that still needs to be done.

The May collections brought the BIR’s five-month revenues to P391.09 billion, 13.7 percent or P46.99 billion higher than year-ago collections of P344.10 billion.

For the whole year, the BIR is tasked to collect P940 billion or higher than last year’s goal of P860 billion. –Iris C. Gonzales (The Philippine Star)