Taxpayer to BIR: Please Find Your Common Sense

This post is actually for everybody in the Philippine government service from the Office of the President (yes, even PBBM!) and down to the barangay tanod who, instead of facilitating faster transactions, use the electronic systems (among other excuses - find ways, according to BDO, and not delaying tactics!) as an excuse to delay serving their public.

email content of the irate taxpayer who started requesting for tax clearance from the BIR since late last year.

An irate taxpayer who has been requesting from BIR RDO54 (Trece Martirez, Cavite) his Certificate of Tax Clearance (CTC) since last year but ignored or found fault in each submission or re-submission told in his email to the BIR personnel recipients to find their common sense.

The taxpayer said he complied with the requirements since the fees were still only P130. "Sa tagal ng pabalik-balik namin, inabutan na kami ng inflation hanggang naging P330 na yong fees, ipinagpipilitan yong payment nila via e-FPS daw, e, nakalagay naman sa website nila na pwede kahit sa gcash ang payment," (We started requesting for the Certificate of Tax Clearance since late last year when the fee for processing was only P130. It has passed through inflation already, reaching P330, until now, we are still waiting for it) the taxpayer narrated.

The CTC is required for most document processing pertaining to government issuance and other transactions. "Akala nila ganun lang po kadali sa mga maliliit na nagnenegosyo ang e-FPS. Kailangan pang ipaalam sa kanila na nagbabayad lang ako ng tao para mai-process yang quarterly at annual filing sa BIR namin tulad ng nakakaraming maliliit na negosyante... Napakarami nilang forms, e, hindi naman kami nag aral ng accountancy para madaling maintindihan ang mga forms nila at hinihinging mga detalye..." (The BIR personnel actually believed that for us very small entrepreneurs, their online system payment is easy to deal with. We actually need to tell them [BIR] that we are only paying an online processor to do our quarterly and annual filing. They have a lot of forms and information requested which us ordinary entrepreneurs cannot understand because we did not study Accountancy so that we can easily understand their forms and information required) the taxpayer explained.

"Gusto lang naming kumita, hindi yong bawat kibot, magbabayad, maaabala sa pagpila sa opisina nila, at kung ano-ano pa. Kaya sana intindihin nila lahat iyon..." (We only want to earn, not to cough out money each time we request something, we pay, we line-up in long queues in their office, and secure a lot of documents. I hope they understand all of these) he added. "Madalas, ang mga nagpipindot ng keyboards, pinagsasamantalahan din kami porke hawak nila ang e-FPS. Nung di ko na mapigilan, sinabi ko na sa taga BIR na hinihingan ako ng kinse mil para lang magbayad ng P130 sa e-FPS, e pwede naman sa gcash. Kalaunan, sabi ni ms. Darlene sa BIR RDO 54, pwede naman pala, an'dami pa nilang kuda..." (Most of the time, those who understand the online processing take advantage of us so that in order to get a P130 worth of CTC, the processor is asking me for P15,000, which is too much. And when I was not able to hold anymore, I told this to the BIR agent who finally conceded that the gcash payment was actually acceptable because it was indicated in their [BIR] website).

The taxpayer has been exchanging messages with the said RDO since last year, but his CTC until now has not yet been released. Such is the case of transacting with many Philippine government offices if one does not have a so-called connection.