Doctors Help BIR for ITR Filing Campaign

Doctors reconcile with BIR, helps ITR filing campaign

Its all’s well that ends well between the Philippine Medical Association and the Bureau of Internal Revenue, with the two groups deciding instead to work together and encourage citizents to file their income taxes on or before the April 15 deadline:

Check out this story from Rappler:

MANILA, Philippines – Like her colleagues in the medical profession, Dr Minerva Calimag also felt strongly about the controversial advertisement that the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) put out, depicting doctors as tax cheats. 

Calimag, however, would rather let bygones be bygones. As the new president of the Philippine Medical Association (PMA), she appeared with BIR Commissioner Kim Henares in a press conference on Thursday, April 10, to call on taxpayers – especially doctors – to file their returns before the April 15 deadline.

"I felt the profession should not have been treated that way, but, having said that, that is already water under the bridge. We want to move forward, we’re looking forward to better relationships with the BIR, of course, with Commissioner Henares,” Calimag said.

In March, many doctors cried foul when the BIR released advertisements, which portrayed doctors as tax cheats. The PMA, then led by outgoing president Leo Olarte, called the ad “absolutely unfair,” insisting doctors do not deserve to be portrayed as tax evaders.

Weeks later, the BIR filed a complaint against Olarte for his alleged attempt to evade taxes. His term as PMA president will end on May 30. (READ: BIR ad on cheating doctors: A plan that backfired?)

Nothing against doctors

After the public outcry from doctors and other groups, Henares said the ad was in the end effective in relaying a message they had been saying since 2010.

"[The ad was] effective in a sense that it raised public awareness. It must be effective, because if you have an ad, and no one talks about it, then you did not achieve its purpose," she said.

The commissioner also said she has nothing against doctors. (READ: Henares: Ad on tax-cheating doctors a statement of fact)

"I had wanted to be a doctor and still want to be a doctor if ever that’s possible. [But] what my job entails is really requiring everyone to pay their taxes whoever they may be, may it be a friend of mine or a relative of mine,” Henares said in a mix of English and Filipino.

Paying taxes, she said, is a manifestation of obeying the laws of the land.

As of 2013, only 1.8 million self-employed individuals are registered, but only 24% or more than 400,000 have filed their income tax returns (ITRs). This is 1 out of every 4 self-employed professionals, Henares noted.

April 15 deadline

The BIR chief again reminded Filipinos of the April 15 deadline to file ITRs. Doors will be closed at 5 pm, but those still in line will still be entertained.

"If we all file our ITRs and pay our taxes [the P1.456-trillion target] can easily be doubled if all of us just do our duties. Imagine how many roads, schools, and hospitals we can build. And maybe our doctors don’t need to go abroad. We can keep them here,” Henares said.

The PMA and BIR will soon work on a website which can help doctors better understand and compute their taxes.

"We would like to express our commitment to help in the campaign for the medical professionals to pay the right taxes – what we should be doing as good citizens of our country and to help in nation building,” Calimag told Henares. – Rappler.com

If you’re following the BIR’s campaign you might want to check out these other stories:

http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2014/04/06/1309340/public-reminded-pay-right-taxes

http://www.mb.com.ph/bir-keeps-april-15-tax-payment-deadline/

http://www.rappler.com/nation/55173-bir-doctors-reconcile-correct-taxes

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/video/business/04/10/14/bir-reminds-taxpayers-april-15-deadline

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/video/business/04/09/14/henares-no-extension-filing-income-tax?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

Veteran Journalist Writes About the Controversial BIR Ad

For the past few days, there has been a lot of buzz concerning an ad from the BIR which appeared in the newspapers. The ad shows a "Doctor" riding on top of the shoulders of  a teacher with notes showing that the teacher is actually paying bigger taxes despite earning less. 

But should the doctors be offended by the ad? Here is a very informative article written by Solita Monsod in her Phil. Daily Inquirer column.

Get Real
Why take offense?By Solita Collas-Monsod
Philippine Daily Inquirer
12:28 am | Saturday, March 8th, 2014

It is not as if this is the first time we are told that a great number of professionals (e.g., lawyers, accountants, doctors), and the rest of their self-employed, “own-account” brethren, don’t seem to be paying their fair share of taxes. One certainly remembers that P-Noy made a point of it in his State of the Nation Address. It’s been written about at any time these past 20 years, including by yours truly, who also brought it out in any number of speeches in front of professional organizations.

So why has such offense been taken? What’s with the onion-skinned reaction on the part of the Philippine Medical Association? Are the accountants and the lawyers (the lawyers have not as yet been featured, and if the ad campaign of the Bureau of Internal Revenue and Department of Finance does not include them soon, there will be hell to pay) going to say that they, too, are being unfairly treated?

Only consider: Of the 1.7 million professionals registered with the Professional Regulation Commission, less than a quarter—about 400,000—are registered taxpayers. That leaves 1.3 million who are not paying taxes.  Surely it is not a leap of logic to conclude that these will include doctors, lawyers, and accountants, among others?

Then there are the studies of the DOF showing that (and I brought this out 12 years ago, courtesy of Nene Guevara) that for every P10 collected from a fixed-income earner, P1 is collected from a professional. That’s how bad it is. Surely doctors, lawyers, and accountants are also involved here.

In other words, there is enough empirical evidence to justify the ad campaign. There is nothing in the ad campaign that says, or even implies, that all doctors are tax cheats. The ad shows one doctor whose income is more than P1 million paying P7.4 thousand in income taxes, riding on the back of a teacher whose income is P852 thousand paying P221 thousand in income taxes. Then there is a message: “When you don’t pay your taxes, you’re a burden to those who do.” That is all.

From there, the PMA has proclaimed that the thrust of the ad is that the entire medical profession is a burden to the Filipino people. Excuse me? What I understood from the ad was that if a doctor earning P1 million pays only P7,000 in taxes, the doctor has to be a tax cheat. That doesn’t mean all doctors are tax cheats. But it does mean that other doctors who pay similar amounts on their income are tax cheats. That is incontrovertible. Why should anyone take offense at that conclusion?

The same thing can be said of the accountants (it was amusing that the PMA’s Dr. Leo Olarte seemed to hold the accountants to blame for any misdeclaration the doctors made). In the ad, the accountant earning P540 thousand paid P2.5 thousand in taxes, while the chef who earned P513 thousand paid P101 thousand in taxes. Notice that the ratio of tax collections from fixed-income earners (the chef, the teacher) to those of professionals is more than P10 to P1—it’s more like P30 or P50 to P1.

So let’s not make any more out of the ad than what it says: for taxpayers to pay the proper taxes. That the message was eye-catching is a plus. Come April 15, let’s do what is right for the country. Kim Henares should be cheered, not jeered. She’s a hard worker, and she needs all the help she can get.

A look at where the Philippines stands with respect to tax efforts and tax collection compared to 110 developing and developed countries tells us what kind of problems we face (Le, Moreno-Dodson, Byraktar, Tax Capacity and Tax Effort: Extended Cross-Country Analysis from 1994 to 2009).

The tax revenue to GDP ratios of high-income countries in 2009 was 29.3 percent; of middle-income countries (the Philippines is one), 19.3 percent; and of low-income countries, 13.6 percent.

If we group the countries by regions, the tax revenues as percentage of GDP in 2009 for East Asia and the Pacific (EAP, which includes the Philippines) was 14.8 percent.
How does the Philippines compare with these averages (19.30 percent for middle income, 14.80 percent for EAP)? Our average for the period 1994-2009 was 14.34 percent, or below both averages. Worse, in 2013, per Sonny Coloma, this ratio was only 13.6 percent. Nota bene: A 1-percent shortfall from the average is equivalent to roughly P100 billion.

But the study goes further. It ranks countries according to “Tax Effort Index”—the ratio of actual tax collections to predicted tax collections (based on their model which includes the effects not only of income but also of demography, trade openness, agriculture value added and governance quality). The Philippines ranks 64th with a tax effort index of 0.91, which means it is not collecting what it should be collecting. Highest tax effort index is 1.66, lowest is 0.16.
It also classifies the Philippines as a low-collection, low-effort country. A country is regarded as low-collection if its tax collection is lower than 18.31 percent of GDP and regarded as low-effort if its tax effort index is less than 1.

The study, though, offers some consolation to Kim Henares, as well as those who feel she is picking on them: It has found that in recent years, countries with better institutional quality (such as bureaucracy and less corruption) can collect higher taxes. In other words, the quality of governance has to be improved for higher tax revenues.

So what do you think? Hit the comments section and speak your mind!