BIR announces new guidelines on filing and payment of Annual Income Tax Returns due until April 17, 2023

The BIR details the recently implemented guidelines for the filing of Annual Income Tax Returns (AITR) for the Calendar Year (CY) 2022, along with the process for paying the taxpayer’s corresponding taxes due up until April 17, 2023, in their Revenue Memorandum Circular 32-2023.

The RMC was issued on March 16, 2023, and states that taxpayers can now file the AITR for 2022 and pay taxes without the imposition of penalties for wrong venue filing. Taxpayers may file the AITR for CY 2022 and pay the taxes due to any Authorized Agent Banks (AABs) and Revenue Collection Officers (RCOs), notwithstanding the Revenue District Office (RDO) jurisdiction.

Guidelines for filing AITR for CY 2022

Taxpayers required to use the BIR’s Electronic Filing and Payment System (eFPS) must file their AITR electronically and use the eFPS-AAB where they are enrolled. Additionally, the taxpayer must then use the “eBIRForms” if the AITR cannot be filed electronically for any of the following reasons:

1. Enrollment to BIR-eFPS and eFPS-AAB is still being processed.
2. The enhanced forms are not yet available in eFPS.
3. Unavailability of BIR-eFPS covered by the duly released advisory.
4. Unavailability of eFPS-AAB system as informed by the AAB.

The BIR then explains that any tax return filed using eBIRforms no longer needs to be filed on their eFPS.

Updated Tax Payment Methods

The next portion of the circular states that the payment of taxes for any electronically filed returns using the eBIRForms can be completed using any AABs or to any RCOs of the RDO or via the following Electronic Payment gateways:

• Development Bank of the Philippines' (DBP) Pay Tax Online (for holders of Visa/Mastercard Credit Card and/or BancNet ATM/Debit Card).
• Land Bank of the Philippines' (LBP) Link.Biz Portal (for taxpayers who have an ATM account with LBP and/or holders of BancNet ATM/Debit/Prepaid Card and taxpayers utilizing Philippine Clearing House Corporation (PCHC) PayGate or PESONet facility for depositors of Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), Robinsons Bank, Union Bank, BPI, PSBank and Asia United Bank).
• Union Bank's Online/The Portal Payment Facility (for taxpayers who own an account with Union Bank of the Philippines) and InstaPay via UPAY (for individual Non-Union Bank account holders).
• Tax Software Provider/Taxpayer Agent – this includes GCash/Maya/MyEG

Taxpayers who will manually file AITR and pay taxes due thereon through RCOs of the RDO may pay in cash up to Twenty Thousand Pesos (₱ 20,000.00) only or in check regardless of the amount. Provided that, the check shall be made payable to "Bureau of Internal Revenue"

AITR filing guidelines

The Bureau explains that "No Payment AITRs" shall be filed electronically through the eBIRForms. However, taxpayers listed below are still free to manually file their “No payment AITRs” with the RDO in three (3) copies through the electronic or computer-generated returns or photocopied returns in their original format and legal/folio size bond paper:

• Senior Citizens (SCs) or Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) filing for their own returns.
• All employees deriving purely compensation income from two or more employers, concurrently or successively at any time during the taxable year, or from a single employer, although the income of which has been correctly subjected to Withholding Tax, whose spouse is not entitled to the substituted filing.
• Employees qualified for substituted filing under Sec, 2.83.4 of Revenue  Regulations No. 2-98, as amended, but opted to file for an ITR and are filing for purposes of promotion, loans, scholarships, foreign travel requirements, etc.

The last portion of the circular states that taxpayers won’t have to submit a printed copy of the e-filed tax returns to the office under the Large Taxpayers Service (LTS)/RDO if they used an electronically filed AITR without any required attachments.  The bureau clarified that the generated Filing Reference Number from eFPS or the email confirmation from eBlRForms will serve as proof of filing of returns.

The bureau now allows taxpayers to use electronically filed AITRs by having them submit the attachments to the BIR’s Electronic Audited Financial Statement (eAFS) System or to the LTS/RDO where the taxpayer is registered within fifteen (15) days from the date of the tax filing deadline. These attachments will then be “stamped received” by the LTS/RDO. The circular emphasizes that the printed copy of AITR does not need to be stamped "Received".