THE Senate has ratified the Bicameral Conference Committee Report on the disagreeing provisions of the measure that seeks to ease paying of taxes.
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, as well as the Senate conferees to the bicameral panel, said the report is the reconciled version of Senate Bill 2224 and House Bill 4125, or the “Ease of Paying Taxes Act,” which provides for taxpayer segmentation, file-and-pay anywhere mechanism, exemption of micro taxpayers from withholding taxes, reduction of penalties for micro and small taxpayers, and exemption of overseas Filipino workers from the filing of income tax returns.
Under the reconciled version of the measure, the following revisions were added to the country’s tax system to modernize tax administration, remove antiquated procedures, and improve efficiency in tax compliance:
* Option to electronically or manually register, transfer, and cancel registration without the need to pay P500 annual registration fee;
* Adoption of the accrual method for sale of goods and services for Value Added Tax (VAT) purposes;
* Recovery of output VAT paid on uncollected receivables;
* VAT invoice as the only proof of transaction, and removal of the term "prominently" in the phrase "written or printed prominently" found in the current provision;
* Automatic indexation of the VAT threshold;
* Implementation of audit risk assessment in the processing of VAT claims;
* Fixing the period for processing of refund of erroneously paid taxes to 180 days from the date of submission of complete documents; and
* Increase of threshold from P100 to P500 for transactions requiring official receipts, to be adjusted every three years using the Consumer Price Index.
The measure will be forwarded to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for signature.
The Ease of Paying Taxes Act is among the 20 priority measures of the Marcos administration.
In his first State of the Nation Address (Sona), Marcos said his government will implement a “sound fiscal management tax administration reforms” that will increase the revenue collection expenditure of the government in a bid to further boost the country’s economic recovery following the damage caused by the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic. (SunStar Philippines)
