BAGUIO CITY—More than 90 percent of over 5,000 point of sale and cash register machines inspected by fraud experts of the Cordillera office of the Bureau of Internal Revenue across the region have discrepancies that have deprived the government of due taxes.
BIR-CAR officer-in-charge Douglas Rufino said the previously inspected POS and CRMs with discrepancies will be monitored and validated to guarantee that the discrepancies will be corrected by the concerned businessmen for them to pay the right taxes due on April 15, when Income Tax Returns should be filed for the preceding year.
“We will continue to equip our personnel to detect the computer-assisted fraud being committed by erring businessmen who continue to evade paying the right taxes that they are supposed to pay to the government,” Rufino said.
BIR-CAR claimed that while erring taxpayers are trying their best to evade payment of substantial taxes, the agency will continue to train its personnel in detecting fraud and compel businessmen to pay the right taxes.
Lawyer Reynolf Panganiban, BIR Baguio revenue district officer, disclosed that the fraud threshold of POS and CRMs is 30 percent and higher. The discrepancies recorded by the suspect machines were close to that limit, which is why the businessmen were required to pay the balance of the taxes they paid and the discovered discrepancies.
Panganiban warned businesses with fraudulent POS and CRMs that the BIR will file the appropriate charges against them, if only to compel them to be honest in paying their taxes to the government.
Under existing BIR rules, businessmen using POS and CRMs must first register the machines to the bureau to make sure it will be free from computer-assisted fraud.
BIR personnel continue to update their skills and knowledge on computer-assisted fraud, so they will be capable of immediately detecting the discrepancies, Panganiban said. The bureau has been conducting surprise monitoring of the registered machines around the region.
This year, BIR-CAR was given a tax collection goal of P7.8 billion, which is only 5 percent higher than its tax collection goal last year.
However, P1.2 billion of the goal is considered to be foregone with the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act, where workers having an annual gross income of P250,000 and below will be exempted from the payment of income taxes.
That amount has been transferred to BIR-CAR’s projected goal on value added tax, which is imposed on the purchase of goods and services.
BIR-CAR personnel will be going around the region to explain the benefits of the TRAIN to ordinary Filipinos, considering the numerous misconception on its alleged negative impact on the prices of basic commodities being bought by ordinary Filipinos in the markets.