BIR to online biz: register to become legitimate entity

Guballa further said the call for business owners with digital operations to register with BIR has been made since 2013. (File photo by Ramon FVelasquez – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0)

MANILA – Registering with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) will ensure that businesses are operating legally, BIR Deputy Commissioner Arnel Guballa said.

In an interview during the Laging Handa PH program aired over state-owned PTV Wednesday, Guballa said small business owners need not worry about registration and about paying taxes if their earnings do not exceed PHP250,000 annually since they are exempted from paying income tax.

He said registration fee for online sellers is PHP500 and that is the only fee they need to pay unless they do not qualify for tax exemption.

“What we want to tax are the big businesses involved in digital transactions like Lazada and those operated by foreign entities like Netflix,” he added.

Guballa further said the call for business owners with digital operations to register with BIR has been made since 2013.

“We just reiterated recently because the number of businesses engaged on online selling rose during the lockdown,” he said.

Guballa said what the government wants is to collect value-added tax (VAT) from big businesses using digital transactions.

For service providers that have main offices overseas like Netflix, Guballa said tax that will be collected is VAT since its service is being consumed locally.

Registration of all businesses is the first step for BIR to know who to run after, he said.

“We want to know the total population (of those using digital transactions),” he added.