Tax academy to be covered by GCG

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Tax Academy (PTA), an institution aimed at providing training to revenue officials, will be under the supervision of the Governance Commission for Government-Owned or -Controlled Corporations (GCG), the Department of Finance (DOF) said over the weekend.

Citing the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), Finance Undersecretary and chief economist Gil Beltran said the proposed Philippine Tax Academy would be a GCG-covered entity, pursuant to Republic Act 10143.

As such, Beltran said the GCG has been tasked to review the organizational and staff structure of the PTA. He said the DOF earlier submitted to the GCG the organizational structure and staffing pattern of the academy for its approval.

Furthermore, the undersecretary said the DBM also decided to source the initial funding for the tax academy from the government’s subsidies to GOCCs under the annual budget or the General Appropriations Act.

RA 10143, which was signed into law almost seven years ago during the 14th Congress, empowers the DOF to set up a tax academy to provide continuous training and education to personnel of the Bureaus of Internal Revenue (BIR), Customs (BOC)  and  Local Government Finance (BLGF).

The DOF said setting up such institution would help revenue personnel improve their tax collection competence, efficiency and integrity.     

Through its legal group, the DOF has been reviewing the implementing rules and regulations of the tax academy, said Beltran.

The DOF said the PTA, which would be established next year, would have its first campus at the University of Makati. The agency is also exploring possible tie-ups with the School of Economics of the University of the Philippines.

Last October, the DOF said it was eyeing a grant from the government of the United States for the establishment of the PTA.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III had pitched the project to David Malpass, undersecretary of the US Treasury for International Affairs, during a meeting in Washington DC. He also briefly discussed the proposed tax academy project in a forum organized by US think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.