UNLIKE doctors and lawyers, accountants have not immediately secured a temporary restraining order (TRO) from the Supreme Court (SC) against the Bureau of Internal Revenue's (BIR) policy for monitoring service fees of professionals.
This developed after the SC ordered Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima and BIR Commissioner Kim Henares on Tuesday to comment within 10 days on the petition of the Association of Small Accounting Practitioners in the Philippines Inc.
The case challenging the legality of BIR Revenue Regulation 4-2014 was also consolidated with the petition filed by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines and admitted interventions of the Philippine College of Physicians and Philippine Medical Association.
Section 2 of R.R. 4-2014 requires all self-employed professionals to submit an affidavit indicating the rates, manner of billings and the factors they consider in determining their service fees upon registration on or before January 31 of each year and register the books of accounts and official appointment books which shall contain the names of the client and date or time of the meeting.
They must also issue a BIR-registered receipt showing a 100 percent discount in cases when no professional fees are charged.
The BIR earlier came out with newspaper advertisements that portrayed doctors, lawyers and other self-employed professionals as tax cheats. (Sunnex)