posted February 15, 2017 at 07:47 pm
by Julito G. Rada [manilastandard.net]
The government gave taxpayers a leeway
on paying their taxes through credit, debit or prepaid cards.
The Finance Department said in a
statement banks would be held liable and penalized for the delay or
non-remittance of taxes paid by taxpayers through credit, debit or prepaid
cards.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III
approved the amendments to Bureau of Internal Revenue Regulation No. 3-2016
issued by the previous administration.
The old regulation made the taxpayer using credit, debit or prepaid card
liable if the authorized agent banks failed to remit the tax payment to BIR on
time.
Dominguez’s directive would benefit
primarily the self-employed taxpayers and owners of micro, small and medium
enterprises who usually line up for hours at the BIR to pay their taxes.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III
Under the new revenue regulation that
was recommended for approval by BIR commissioner Caesar Dulay, the payment of
taxes done credit, debit or automated teller machine and/or prepaid cards
should be deemed paid by the taxpayer on the date and time appearing in the
system-generated confirmation receipt issued by the authorized agent banks.
“The AAB [authorized agent bank] will
then be the one held liable in case of late remittance or non-remittance of
such tax payments to the BIR,” the department said.
“The liability to pay the tax rests upon
the AAB-acquirer considering that from the time of issuance of a valid
confirmation receipt to the taxpayer-cardholder, the AAB-acquirer becomes the
trustee of the government with the obligation to remit the payment on time to
the BIR,” it said.
Finance undersecretary Antonette Tionko
said the new system was a reasonable approach “considering that the taxpayer
has no control over the actual remittance of the payment to the BIR other than
securing a valid confirmation receipt and ensuring that his/her tax payment is
paid through a legitimate AAB of the BIR.”
Tionko, who heads the DOF’s revenue operations group,
said the new rule was consistent with the memorandum of agreement among the
BIR, Bureau of Treasury and the
authorized banks, whose obligation to collect, “carries with it the
responsibility to remit accurately and on time such collections to the BTr.”
Tionko said the AAB was responsible for
holding the tax payments “in a fiduciary capacity for the account of the
national government, which should be considered as separate from the other
funds in its custody.”
Tionko said that under the agreement,
banks should pay penalties for late remittance, under remittance, and
non-remittance of the accepted tax payments.
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