Tax Academy to tie up with SUCs, open VisMin campuses

THE Department of Finance (DOF) will tie up with State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) such as the University of the Philippines (UP) and the University of Makati (UMak) in setting up the first Philippine Tax Academy (PTA) in the country by January next year.

The main campus of the PTA will be at the UMak in Makati City while the UP College of Economics in Diliman is being eyed to offer Executive Program certificate courses to interested DOF employees, Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran said in a report to Secretary Carlos Dominguez III.

Beltran said the DOF is also planning to open regional campuses of the PTA in the Visayas and Mindanao with the main site in Region 10 following a request by the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) for the renovation of its Northern Mindanao regional office in Cagayan de Oro City to a PTA Center.

This planned PTA Training Center will provide provincial employees of the BLGF, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Bureau of Customs (BOC) continuing professional education and training on improving tax collection competence and efficiency.

The BLGF, he said, has requested a budget of P33 million to build the PTA Training Center and its offices in the bureau’s 1,064 square meter property in Cagayan de Oro City.

Beltran said the BLGF will also soon start offering PTA training courses to local Beltran said consultants engaged by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) are also now “onboard” to help develop the PTA curriculum. DOF