About 1.43 million or nearly 100 percent of the total number of the annual income tax returns (AITRs) for 2020 were filed online this year as the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) ramped up its digitalization initiatives to make tax compliance more convenient and accessible to the public.

In a report to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, the BIR said that from January 1 up to the April 15 deadline for the filing of the 2020 AITRs this year, only 7,139 were filed manually.

A total of 1,430,470 or 99.5 percent of the AITRs were done online through the Bureau’s electronic Filing and Payment System (eFPS) and electronic BIR Forms (eBIRForms) System.

Dominguez commended the BIR for ensuring the smooth and glitch-free electronic filing and payment of ITRs this year, which encouraged more taxpayers to fulfill their civic duty of paying taxes even amid the mobility restrictions imposed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even before the outbreak of the pandemic, Dominguez had pressed the BIR and Bureau of Customs (BOC) to fast-track their digital switch as a way to boost online transactions and improve the ease of doing business in the country’s top two revenue-generation agencies.

BIR Deputy Commissioner Arnel Guballa said the 99.5 percent of e-filed AITRs this year represents a 1,465-percent increase from the mere 10 percent of AITRs filed online in 2015.

When the Duterte administration took office, the number of e-filed returns steadily increased to 672,820 or 51.84 percent of the total AITRs filed in 2017, and 878,908 or 58.25 percent in 2018.

The number of e-filed AITRs rose sharply to 1,281,731 or 80.4 percent of the total AITRs filed in 2019, and to 1,314,672 or 90 percent in 2020, Guballa said in his report during a recent executive committee (Execom) meeting of the Department of Finance (DOF).

“We are starting to reap the benefits of our continued digitalization efforts that aim to make tax compliance easier, more accessible, and more convenient for the public,” Guballa said in his report.

As for electronic tax payments, Guballa said that in 2020, the revenue collections of the BIR through electronic channels accounted for P1.66 trillion or 85 percent of its total collection, which was P 51 billion or 44 percent higher than the P1.15 trillion collected by the Bureau through e-channels in 2015.

This year, preliminary data show that BIR collections through e-channels amounted to P573 billion, which represents 83 percent of the total collection of P689 billion as of April 30.

The number of e-payers, or the taxpayers who paid their internal revenue taxes through the eFPS, Electronic Fund Transfer Instructions System (eFTIS), and other e-payment channels implemented by the BIR, totaled 496,590 as of April 30 this year.

Guballa said this represents an increase of 535 percent or 418,472, based on preliminary data when compared to the 78,118 ePayers in 2015.

He said the number of e-payers increased dramatically from 4 percent in 2015 to 12 percent in 2017 as a result of the successful implementation by the BIR of the electronic payments channels GCash, Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) ePayment System, and the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) PayTax Online System.

Additional e-payment channels launched starting in 2019 include the Union Bank of the Philippines (UBP) Online, PesoNet and Paymaya, Guballa said.

The number e-payers went down to 7 percent in 2018 because of the initial unavailability of several tax forms online as the BIR had to adjust them to conform to the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law, Guballa said.

“Nonetheless, this has already been addressed in the succeeding years, with e-payers accounting for 17 percent of the total number of taxpayers in 2020. Preliminary data also show that from January 1 to April 30, e-payers accounted for 24 percent of the total number of taxpayers,” he added.

In 2020, Guballa said BIR collections through the additional electronic payment channels implemented by the Duterte administration starting in 2017 amounted to P4.98 billion from 1.16 million transactions.

“This is already P3.765 billion higher when compared to the collections made by the Bureau through these additional electronic payment channels at P1.22 billion in 2019 from 449,849 transactions,” he said.

Guballa also reported that from the 1.91 million electronic payment transactions made with the BIR in 2015, this number rose to 4.01 million electronic payment transactions in 2020, representing an increase of 110 percent.

To further step up its digital transformation, the BIR plans to complete the rollout of its Internal Revenue Integrated System (IRIS), which will serve as the BIR’s central tool and repository to process taxpayers’ information, by the fourth quarter of 2021.

The BIR has also launched its Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) Verifier App, and the Online Application for Tax Clearance for Bidding Purposes (TCBP) and Tax Compliance Verification Certificate (TCVC).

It has allowed taxpayers to book online appointments with revenue officers regarding tax-related concerns through its eAppointments service starting this year.

To improve data sharing by the BIR with other government agencies, the BIR will implement the second phase of its Asset Information Management Program (AIMP).

This project will provide a system that includes an integrated data warehouse and analytics that would integrate information from various agencies with existing Tax Amnesty Returns and Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Networth (SALN) filed under Republic Act (RA) No. 9480.

The BIR also launched the first phase of the ePERA System that will conveniently handle the issuance of Tax Credit Certificate (TCC) to contributors to the Personnel Economic Relief Allowance (PERA) in September last year.

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