The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) said yesterday that individual taxpayers, numbering to millions, are still required to file and pay income taxes if their annual incomes are P100,000 or less.
BIR Commissioner Guillermo Parayno Jr. stressed that there is no law or revenue regulation that has been enacted scrapping the tax filing requirement.
The BIR chief said the non-filing of returns is not new as the scheme was implemented by the bureau two years ago under the so-called "substituted filing" system wherein employers file the returns of their employees whose taxes withheld are equal to the amount of tax due from them.
He said the BIR came out recently with Revenue Regulation 1-2004 which grants marginal self-employed taxpayers like professionals and traders, or those earning below P100,000 annually, certain tax privileges but not the payment of income tax.
This group of taxpayers, he said, are exempted from filing business taxes (percentage and value added) registration fees and creditable withholding taxes for suppliers of agricultural products.
Taxpayers exempted from filing and paying income taxes are overseas contract workers and individuals whose annual earnings do not exceed their personal and additional exemptions.
Revenue officials said the government stands to lose at least P24 billion annually if the threshold of tax examination is raised to P100,000 which will adversely affect efforts of the bureau to raise about P480 billion this year.
The deadline for the filing of 2003 tax returns for both individual and corporate taxpayers is on April 15, which, according to Parayno, will not be extended.
The BIR chief appealed to taxpayers to file their returns early to avoid inconveniences during the last minute rush. (Jun Ramirez)
