A Scientist’s Guide to the BIR and Paying Taxes, Part 1: Registration

As a scientist, nothing quite stirs up feelings of dread in me like a rejection letter from a refereed journal and taxes. Like the majority of the University of the Philippines’ (UP) thousands-strong research staff, my work is project-based, meaning our work contracts are up for renewal on a periodic basis. 

 

As a project-based researcher (instead of a regular employee), UP considers me as a “professional” and I am therefore obligated to handle all of the tax documents required by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR). This series of articles aims to help out researchers navigate the murky waters of being a “professional” in the Philippines and what that means for taxes.

 

How to register as a professional

 

1. Check if you need or want to transfer your Tax Identification Number (TIN) from your home Revenue District Office (RDO), or the RDO where you got your TIN, to the RDO near your current place of work (in my case, RDO 39 for UP Diliman).

 

In my case, I got my TIN from RDO 39 but chose to transfer it to my home address’ RDO because I wanted to use my home address as my registered business address. 

 

For researchers who got their TINs in their home provinces, it makes more sense to transfer the TIN to Quezon City so that you can file you taxes in Quezon City. To transfer the TIN, you need to submit Form 1905 to your current RDO, mark “Change in Registered Address”, and list the new RDO. Because you need to file this with your original RDO, if you got your TIN in Tawi-Tawi, yes you will have to file Form 1905 in Tawi-Tawi. If you don’t have any relatives, friends, and/or any person willing to do nice things for you in the area who can file it for you, you’re out of luck. BIR said that it takes 3-5 working days for your TIN to transfer between RDOs, though it took about 10 days in my case.

 

2. File Form 1901 to register as a professional. Take note that once you do this, you will be considered a professional and will have to file tax returns for your profession regardless of whether you earned money or not (just declare “zero income” for that time period). This means that even if you become a full-time employee later on, your employer will no longer be able to do substitute filings on your behalf because you are still considered a “mixed income” earner. This holds until you cancel your registration as a professional, but that’s another topic altogether. 

 

What to bring when you file Form 1901:

 

In Form 1901, you have to declare the profession that you’ll be practicing. I initially put down “Scientist” but BIR told me that they don’t have that as a work category. My initial Certificate of Registration said “Writer – Radio, Television, Film” category because of my science writing work with GMA but I managed to change it a few days later when I got a more knowledgeable BIR staffer who made more of an effort and classified me under “Research and Experimental Development in the Natural Sciences” (category # 7311). Click here to see the list of work categories used by BIR.

 

The BIR staffer also initially insisted that I needed a copy of my work contract because they needed “proof” that I was practicing the profession that I was registering for. This is “proof” is usually your Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) card but scientists don’t have board exams. As I didn’t have a work contract yet (UP usually takes at least a month to finalize and notarize contracts), BIR asked for my diploma instead.

 

When you file 1901, you will need to pay the annual registration fee of P500, which you can pay using BIR Form 0605 (accomplish four copies) at any BIR-accredited bank. You pay this every calendar year before the end of January. Once you pay, photocopy the bank’s receipt, submit it to BIR, and pay the P15 Documentary Stamp Fee so they’ll issue you the Certificate of Registration.

 

3. Once you have the Certificate of Registration, you can then register your books of account with BIR. You’ll need a set of three books: ledger, journal, and 12-column book. Register more copies if you have a lot of transactions to record. You can buy the books at any bookstore.

 

4. To get Official Receipts, submit the Authority to Print (ATP) Receipts and Invoices (Form 1906) (accomplish in triplicate) to BIR. Releasing the ATP usually takes 3-5 working days.

 

I highly suggest that you already bring your books of account and Authority to Print with you when you register because you can already process these as soon as you have the Certificate of Registration.

 

5. Once you get the ATP, give the ATP to a BIR-accredited printer and order your receipts. The minimum order is usually 10 booklets of receipts. The ones I got cost P1,600 for 10 booklets: P160 per booklet for 50 receipts, 2 copies per receipt, and regular paper only (not the fancy carbonless ones). These receipts are valid for 5 years after printing or until they run out, whichever comes first. Also, some printers offer to file and claim the ATP for you as part of their services so you should also ask around.

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Macy Añonuevo earned her MS Marine Science degree from the University of the Philippines. She is a published science and travel writer and was a finalist in the 2013 World Responsible Tourism Awards under the Best Photography for Responsible Tourism category. Her writings and photographs may be found at www.theislandergirl.com.