Finance orders halt to tax assessment vs. cooperatives

The Department of Finance has directed all internal revenue officers to stop issuing tax assessments against cooperatives in response to their complaints.

In a memorandum circular, the finance department said the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) should halt the issuance of these tax assessment based on the old cooperative law.

Under Article 60 of the new Cooperative Code, duly registered cooperatives that do not transact any business with nonmembers or the general public would not be subject to any taxes and fees imposed under the internal revenue and other tax laws.

Article 61 also provides that cooperatives transacting business with both members and non-members shall not be subjected to tax on their transactions with members. In relation to this, the transactions of members with the cooperative shall not be subject to any taxes and fees, including but not limited to final taxes on members’ deposits and documentary tax.

Cooperatives with accumulated reserves and divided net savings of more than P10 million are exempted from income tax, value-added tax, all other taxes unless otherwise provided and donations to charitable, research and educational institutions and reinvestment to socioeconomic projects within the area of operation of the cooperative may be tax deductible.

Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said that after the BIR and Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) joint issuance was completed, revenue officers could then issue assessments, but these “must be based on the new cooperative code, the IRR [implementing rules and regulations] and the BIR-CDA joint issuance on the tax-related provision of the law.”

The BIR and the CDA have completed the draft IRR and the draft joint issuance on the tax-related provisions of Republic Act 9520 or the Cooperative Code of 2008 in September.

According to Teves, the IRR and the BIR-CDA joint issuance has to be immediately subjected to formal consultations with all stakeholders, before its submission to the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Cooperatives. –Lailany P. Gomez, Manila Times