By Zinnia B. Dela Peña (The Philippine
Star) | Updated September 4, 2013 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines - Tightening its
leash on self-employed individuals, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) will
require doctors, lawyers, dentists and others practicing a profession to fully
disclose their fees.
Internal Revenue commissioner Kim
Henares said the agency would be issuing a memorandum circular, requiring
professionals to post their rates in their offices and clinics as part of
efforts to promote transparency and boost revenue collections.
Also considered professionals are
accountants, engineers, architects and real estate brokers.
The move follows complaints received
by the agency against several doctors who have been charging exorbitant or
additional fees when they are asked by patients to issue an official receipt.
“Withholding tax and value-added tax should be
incorporated in the professional fee. These taxes are not on top of it,”
Henares said.
Henares noted that all professionals
are mandated to issue receipts or invoices that are printed only by accredited
printers of the BIR. This is intended to
prevent individuals from under-declaring gross earnings.
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The receipts should indicate the
taxpayer’s registered name, date of transaction, description of service, total
cost and serial number of the invoice.
Henares said the issuance of receipts
is part of government efforts to ensure that professionals pay their respective
income taxes.
Henares said those who will be found
guilty of evading taxes face imprisonment and other criminal sanctions as
provided under the Tax Code.
Based on BIR documents, there were 1.8
million professionals registered with the agency but only about 403,000 of them
paid taxes. The average payment received
from them amounted to P33,000 a year.
Collections from self-employed
individuals and professionals accounted for only 6.8 percent of individual
income taxes last year.
The Finance Department and BIR aim to
increase average tax payments to P200,000, which will translate to a two percent increase in
the country’s ratio of tax to gross domestic product by 2016.
For this year, the BIR is eyeing a
16.4-percent growth in its individual income tax collection to P258.14 billion
from the previous year’s P221.77 billion.
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