MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) starts today its nationwide investigation of 2011 income tax returns (ITRs) filed by individuals and corporations last April.
Revenue Commissioner Kim S. Jacinto-Henares instructed tax collectors to continue their audit work to meet their individual collection assignments for the year.
The BIR chief issued the instruction over the weekend before flying to Spain to attend the two-day meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for tax administrators of member countries.
Revenue regional directors and heads of various divisions of the Large Taxpayers Service (LTS) were reluctant to open the 2011 ITRs for audit purposes.
They are waiting for the issuance of the so-called Annual Audit Program (AAP) by the top management, a practice adopted previously before an investigation can commence.
Henares said no such guideline will be issued for the year and tax examiners should continue what they have been doing for the BIR generate more funds to support President Aquino's social and economic development programs.
She said taxpayers with deficiency taxes should be required to pay additional amounts and those who deliberately falsified their tax records should be ferreted out so that they can be included in the Run-After-Tax-Evaders (RATE).
The BIR has experienced difficulties in meeting its collection targets for first four months of the year but the take was substantially higher than the actual collection for the same period last year raising P345.5 billion.
Higher fiscal authorities fixed the BIR collection goal for the year at P1.066 trillion.source: mb.com.ph