MANILA, Philippines — At least 44 tax regulations and rulings, the bulk of which came from the previous administration, were formally asked to be reviewed or revoked by the Tax Management Association of the Philippines (TMAP).
In a letter dated June 19, TMAP submitted to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III a "wish list" of regulations and orders by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) it wants revisited.
Of the 44 cited issuances, 38 were issued by former BIR Commissioner Kim Henares.
"We would like to recommend for revocation and/or amendment in order to help the BIR attain the following objectives: increase tax collection, simplify taxation rules to enhance the ease of doing business, encourage voluntary compliance, prevent corruption," the letter read.
A copy of the letter was sent to reporters. The Department of Finance oversees the BIR.
Sought for comment, Henares maintained her orders were consistent with the National Internal Revenue Code.
"If it has no legal basis, the issuance thereof could have been questioned in court," she said in a text message.
Covered by the list are tax transactions on sales of unlisted shares of stock, the withholding of taxes, deadline on filing value-added tax refund claims and cutting time a taxpayer may challenge his or her tax assessment.
They also include "unreasonable" and "unclear" reportorial and bookkeeping requirements that "increases the cost of business," TMAP said.
The group also challenges "too onerous" computation on interest and penalties for late filing of taxes, "unconstitutional" requirement to validate tax exemptions as well as ruling on joint ventures "with no legal basis."
Not all issuances came from Henares. TMAP was also calling for the cancellation of six regulations dating back as far as 1982.
These include changes "inconsistent" costs computation for gross income and imposition of donor's tax on non-book value on stock transactions.
Prior to this, TMAP already scored a victory after Henares' successor, Caesar Dulay, repealed tax probe rules for property buyers and sellers.
Dulay had also suspended implementation of Henares' other orders last month.
"We would like to express our appreciation...for the clear showing of your support and concern to taxpayers through the immediate withdrawal of the last-minute issuances of the previous commissioner and suspension of tax audits," TMAP told Dominguez.
Dominguez has not replied to request for comment as of this post.
For his part, Tugonon maintained TMAP had reached out to Henares to tackle its concerns.
"We filed position papers to her office which ended up not being minded," he said in a phone interview.
"We cannot file before the courts because we, TMAP, are not party to these issuances. We are not the ones affected," he added.