The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) will run after the 75,000 cooperatives in the country for possible non-compliance with the requirements of the tax code and the cooperative code.

After the signing of the joint rules and regulations implementing the Republic Act 9520 or the Philippine Cooperative Code of 2008 last month, the BIR issued a revenue memorandum circular regarding the tax audit guidelines for cooperatives nationwide.

The RMC provided that all tax cases prior to the effectivity date of RA 9520 on March 22, 2009, the old cooperative code shall govern since the new law did not provide any retroactive effect.

Also, all BIR offices are authorized to issue notices of investigation for the 2008 internal revenue tax returns of cooperatives, including tax returns of fiscal period taxpayers whose taxable year ended March 22 last year.

But BIR has to secure prior authorization from the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) or from any of its extension offices having jurisdiction over the cooperative for all other tax cases covering the period beyond March 22 last year.

The authorization shall be released by CDA and the concerned extension office within 20-days from receipt of the request from the BIR.

Likewise, CDA shall also be providing the concerned cooperative said authorization provided to the BIR for their information.

“Cooperatives, even though they enjoy preferential tax treatment, shall still have to undergo BIR audit to ensure that they are properly complying with the requirements of the tax code and the cooperative code,” BIR Commissioner Joel L. Tan-Torres said.