MANILA, Philippines — Even with quarantine measures lasting until the end of the month, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) will not grant another extension on tax deadlines, to finally enable the government to raise revenues for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) response.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III and BIR Commissioner Caesar Dulay issued Revenue Regulation 12-2020 repealing Section 3 of RR 11-2020, which had allowed deadlines to be deferred by another 15 days in case quarantine measures are extended.
The new rules state that “the defined extended due dates under Section 2 of RR No. 11-2020 shall remain in effect regardless of any extension or modification of quarantine.”
Sought for comment, BIR Deputy Commissioner Marissa Cabreros said the BIR decided not to grant further extensions on tax filing and payments given the government’s urgent need for funds in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
“The government urgently needs revenue collection to finance measures against COVID-19, so we cannot have further extension anymore. We want to encourage compliance and payment of taxes already,” Cabreros said in a text message.
In line with the new regulations, the deadline for the filing of annual income tax returns of individuals and corporations for calendar year ending Dec. 31, 2019 will remain on June 14 as set by RR No. 11-2020.
The deadline for availment of the tax amnesty on delinquencies will also remain on June 22.
Due dates for other tax documents and payments, such as monthly and quarterly value-added tax declarations, documentary stamp tax declarations, excise tax returns and withholding taxes on compensation, will also be unchanged.
The government has extended tax deadlines three times due to the pandemic. The deadlines have been moved several times as the Luzon-wide quarantine imposed by Malacañang on March 16 was extended to April 30 and again by another two weeks to May 15.
President Duterte declared Metro Manila and Laguna under modified enhanced community quarantine until May 31, but no tax deadline extension was granted anymore.
Cebu City and Mandaue City, meanwhile, remain under enhanced community quarantine.
Due to the extension of tax deadlines, preliminary data from the Department of Finance (DOF) showed that tax collections of the BIR in the first four months of 2020 declined by 25.4 percent to P527.41 billion from P706.78 billion last year.
This was also 0.19 percent short of the agency’s P528.44-billion goal for the four-month period.
For the month of April alone, the BIR’s revenues slumped by 69.83 percent to P71.78 billion from P237.93 billion in the same month of 2019.
Dominguez said earlier the government would still be able to collect the uncollected taxes, as they are merely postponed.
“That tax will be intact because that is earned from last year. What we really lost is the VAT collections, excise tax collections between mid-March until end-May, that is the big loss,” he pointed out.