Amended guidelines on processing tax clearance applications for bidding

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) recently issued Revenue Regulations (RR) No. 18-2018 to amend the guidelines on processing applications for tax clearance for bidding purposes.

One of the amendments is the manual filing of all applications for the issuance of tax clearance with the collection division of the revenue regional office where the taxpayer is duly registered or with the concerned office under the Large Taxpayers Service, if the taxpayer is classified as a large taxpayer, until an online application is available for the use of prospective bidders.

Applications were previously manually filed with the Office of the Accounts Receivable and Monitoring Division in the National Office.

Another amendment is the revision of one of the criteria for issuing a tax clearance. For those with previously issued tax clearances for bidding purposes, the requested tax clearance must only be issued if they are regular eFiling and Payment System (eFPS) users from the time of enrollment up to the time of filing of application.

Using EFPS will not apply to new applicants. The submission of the new applicant’s tax returns not filed and paid through eFPS will suffice. New applicants were previously required to use the eFPS for at least two months before applying.

The validity period of the issued tax clearance for bidding purposes is one year from the date of issuance, unless revoked sooner for valid reasons. Please be guided accordingly.