CCCI appeals for tax leeway

CEBU, Philippines —  The Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) has appealed for taxpayer leeway in highly urbanized cities (HUDs) such as Cebu City and Mandaue City.

In a letter addressed to Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) commissioner Caesar R. Dulay, the Chamber requested for reconsideration of BIR regulations extending the deadlines for tax filings and payments during the extended Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) in the cities.

Signed by CCCI president Felix Taguiam, the CCCI position paper expressed that the implementation of the extensions which are due on June 09, 14, 19, 24, and 29 will be administratively inefficient and will overburden the taxpayers in Cebu and Mandaue HUCs considering that these cities were placed under ECQ until May 31, making it impossible for businesses to file all the necessary tax returns on time.

“For VAT and withholding transactions, taxpayers’ needs to collate the supporting documents and figures as far back as February 2020 making it direly impossible to be finished within the deadline,” CCCI’s position paper stated.

Subsequently, it was pointed out that only a few businesses maintained a skeletal workforce with most of its employees on work from home, while majority were closed due to the extended ECQ.

“With the lumped extended deadline, we cannot also discount the fact that RDOs in Cebu City and Mandaue, which may still be on skeletal workforce by that time, will be slumped with backlogs, thus, their inability to cater to urgent concerns of the taxpayers,” it added as the ECQ in the cities will be lifted on June 1.

CCCI recommended a longer extension be provided for Withholding Taxes (Creditable & Final), VAT and percentage tax returns covering the months or quarters ending in February to May and Annual Income Tax return for December 31, 2019 be provided another extension from June 14, 2020 to June 30, 2020.

The same is also recommended for taxpayers within the jurisdiction of Revenue District Offices (RDOs) in Revenue Region 13 are located in Cebu City (RDO 81 and 82) and Mandaue City (RDO 80) which are all within the ECQ areas.

Likewise, CCCI expressed that the business community fervently seeks the help of the government in easing the burden of prevalent business losses brought by the pandemic.