BIR, DTI link up systems to ease tax registration
Tax registration for new small businesses just got easier after two government agencies agreed yesterday to facilitate the procedures on their behalf.
Under a memorandum of agreement, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Department of Trade and Industry ( DTI) are linking their systems to process tax identification numbers ( TIN) and other permits for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
MSMEs are businesses with asset size worth between P3 million and P100 million and employ less than 200 employees, according to trade data.
They account for around 97 percent of local enterprises.
“This is in pursuit of the mandate of the President and this administration to be conscious and aware of the needs of the business community,” BIR commissioner Caesar Dulay told reporters in a briefing.
Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez, for his part, said the new effort would help bring more MSMEs into the formal economy and would broaden the economy’s tax base.
“We are, in effect, encouraging more registration of MSMEs with the hope that
they will really be part of the economic system and would help them access loans and gain more market access,” Lope z said in the same briefing.
Under the agreement, BIR will issue TIN through the Philippine Business Registry as well as certificate of registration and those documents covered by secondary registration.
Secondary registration includes authorization to keep book of accounts and authority to issue permits. Currently, only big sole proprietorship are given registry access.
TIN and permits will be handed out by DTI to the MSMEs, “about a million” of which remains underg round, Lope z said.
Dulay said capturing those MSMEs could result in as much as P1 billion in additional revenues every year.
“This MOA is a start. This is not the end as we continue to find ways to respond to the clamor and the needs of MSMEs,” Dulay said.