MANILA, Philippines – The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) released a new regulation amending past rules on the payment of taxes through credit, debit or prepaid card and relieving the taxpayer of any liability in case of late or non-remittance of payment from the bank to the BIR.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III and BIR Commissioner Caesar Dulay signed Revenue Regulation 2-2017 amending Section 4 of RR 3 issued in 2016.
In the past, payment of taxes through credit, debit or prepaid card were deemed made on the date and time appearing on the confirmation receipt handed by the taxpayer-cardholder by the authorized agent bank-acquirer (AAB-acquirer), provided that the payment is remitted to the BIR on time.
“The taxpayer is not relieved of, and has a continuing liability for, such taxes until the payment is actually received by the BIR,” RR 3-2016 read.
“This continuing liability of the taxpayer is in addition to any liability of the AAB-acquirer pursuant to the Service Level Agreement entered into by the BIR and the AAB-acquirer,” it added.
With the new issuance, any liability on the part of the taxpayer-cardholder is relieved once they receive a system-generated payment confirmation receipt from the AAB-acquirer.
In case of late or non-remittance of the taxes to the BIR, the liability to make the payment would rest upon the authorized bank.
“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,” RR 2-2017 read.
The BIR said it recognizes the need to make additional modes of payment available to ease the burden of the public in the settling their internal revenue taxes and other applicable fees.