Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Jacinto-Henares has reminded those taxpayers who were able to manually file their so-called no-payment returns on or before April 15, should also resubmit those returns electronically by June 15, to avoid paying the penalty and surcharges.
Henares issued Revenue Memorandum Circular 18-2015, which provided that those taxpayers who filed the no-payment income-tax returns (ITRs) manually have until June 15 to resubmit those returns through the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) eBIR Forms facility.
The taxpayers who were allowed to file manually and subsequently filed them electronically were those using the BIR form numbers: 1700 (annual ITR of individuals earning purely compensation income); 1701 (annual ITR for self-employed individuals, estates and trusts); 1701Q (quarterly ITR for self-employed individuals, estates and trusts);
1702-RT (annual ITR for corporation, partnership and other nonindividual taxpayer subject to regular income-tax rate); 1702-MX (annual ITR for corporation, partnership and other nonindividual taxpayer with mixed income subject to multiple income-tax rates or with special or preferential tax rate;
1702-EX (annual ITR for use only by corporation, partnership and other non-individual taxpayer exempt under the Tax Code and other special laws, with no other taxable income); and 1702Q (quarterly ITR for corporations, partnerships and other nonindividual taxpayers).
The deferment of the electronic filing of the no-payment returns was meant to allow the BIR to prioritize those taxpayers required to file electronically and have their income tax settled.
But, despite the more lenient procedure on the electronic filing of no-payment returns, the BIR said there remained some taxpayers who reported annual income tax due as low as P5 just to be able to remove themselves from the classification of taxpayers required to file the ITR electronically.
Revenue Regulations 6-2014 enumerated the additional taxpayers required to file electronically, including those filing a no-payment return.
Henares said that the ingenious way by which those taxpayers tried to evade being classified as taxpayers filing no-payment returns has aroused the suspicion of the BIR on why those taxpayers are averse to being required to file electronically.
“We feel that they’re doing this because they have something to hide, and because of that they will be the first ones that we will investigate,” she said.
David Cagahastian