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Behavioral finance bias is either based on faulty reasoning or emotions. Faulty reasoning is cured through better information and education. However, biases arising from emotions or feelings are hard to correct because they stem from the unconscious level such as impulses and intuitions. The following are few of the behavioral finance biases that need to be recognized and managed.

For most businesses in the Philippines, the first quarter of the year demands compliance of annual registration renewals, filing of tax returns, submission of financial statements, and payment of taxes. Corporate and tax practitioners have infamously tagged this period as the busy season in which they find themselves working around the clock for longer hours and with countless doses of caffeine.

There is no doubt that Omicron has impeded most economic recovery efforts. Just in the past month alone, news agencies have reported that the COVID-19 variant has slowed business growth in the United Kingdom to its most glacial pace in a year and the International Monetary Fund has adjusted its global growth forecast to a modest 4.4 percent amidst higher inflation rates and positive case numbers worldwide. Here at home, the Philippine Statistics Authority has likewise downgraded its third-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth figure from 7.1 percent year-on-year to 6.9 percent.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) issued Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) No. 13-2022, which reiterates the amendment on the tax treatment of nonprofit hospitals and proprietary educational institutions through Republic Act No. 11635, entitled “An Act Amending Section 27(B) of the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997, As Amended, and for Other Purposes”.

It’s been almost two years since the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) released several issuances involving updated reporting requirements for related party transactions (RPTs) and compliance with transfer pricing (TP) regulations. Since then, a lot of business entities have been anticipating how the tax authorities will be conducting audit investigations on RPTs, and whether they will be among the first ones to get to experience the TP audit.

Last January 17, 2022, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has issued a tax advisory reiterating Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) No. 18-2021 that allows employer-taxpayers to submit to the BIR copies of Certificate of Compensation Payment/Tax Withheld for Compensation Payment With or Without Tax Withheld (BIR Form No. 2316) for the calendar year ended December 31, 2021, even without the signature of the concerned employee, provided that the BIR Form No. 2316 is duly signed by the authorized representative of the employer-taxpayer.

Climate change, depletion of biodiversity, and waste management. All these have and continue to put a threat to human lives. These issues, more commonly referred to as environmental problems, bring global economies to come together and find the most appropriate course of action to combat or at least reverse the damage brought by these risks. To add, these risks and their adverse effects to the quality of human life today and in the future have given rise to the concept of intergenerational ethics, a sense of moral obligation to preserve the environment for future generations.

During one of my yearly home visits, I asked my father why there were no more cornfields visible along the roads. He replied “Alkanse na ang pang uma karon dong uy” (Farming is no longer profitable nowadays, son). From that reply, I sensed his frustration as he was once a farmer. He then added that the cost of farming inputs, as well as the effects of climate change, prompted him to quit farming.