Ease of payment of taxes bill ratified by Senate, House

The Senate and the House of Representatives have ratified the bicameral conference committee report which reconciled the disagreeing provisions of their respective versions of the propose Ease of Paying Taxes bill.

The measure is now up for the signature of President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. 

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, the head of the Senate conferees to the bicameral panel, said the final version of the measures provides for taxpayer segmentation, a file-and-pay-anywhere mechanism, exemption of micro taxpayers from withholding taxes, reduction of penalties for micro and small taxpayers, and exemption of OFWs from the filing of income tax returns.

To modernize tax administration, remove antiquated procedures, and improve efficiency in tax compliance, the measure introduces the following revisions:

• Option to electronically or manually register, transfer, and cancel registration without the need to pay P500 annual registration fee
• Adoption of the accrual method for sale of goods and services for VAT purposes
• Recovery of output VAT paid on uncollected receivables
• VAT invoice as the only proof of transaction
• Automatic indexation of the VAT threshold
• Implementation of audit risk assessment in the processing of VAT claims
• Fixing the period for processing of refund of erroneously paid taxes to 180 days from the date of submission of complete documents
• Increase of threshold from P100 to P500 for transactions requiring official receipts, to be adjusted every 3 years using the Consumer Price Index.

The proposed Ease of Paying Taxes Act is one of the priority measures of the Marcos administration. —Jiselle Casucian/NB, GMA Integrated News