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Tax Notes

Online submission of filed 2019 annual ITR and its required attachments

LONG queues to stamp Annual Income Tax Returns (ITRs) and Financial Statements have been common at most Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Revenue District Offices (RDOs), especially on the date of a deadline. Fortunately, this time-consuming practice is expected to finally end as taxpayers are provided with other options for submission.

The BIR issued Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) 49-2020 on May 22, 2020, laying down the following additional options for taxpayers:

  • Submitting through Revenue Collection Officers or
  • Submitting through the online AFS eSubmission (eAFS) facility

A. Manually submitting through the nearest RDO notwithstanding RDO jurisdiction

The BIR will accept and stamp the following documents as “Received”:

1. For manual filers with online payments – ITR

2. For electronic filers – copy of the Filing Reference Number generated from the Electronic Filing and Payment System (eFPS)/email confirmation from the eBIR Forms System

3. Attachments – only the pages with the Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and Audit Certificate, if applicable. For corporations and other juridical persons, at least two extra copies of the AFS should be stamped as “Received” for filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

B. Submitting through eAFS

Alternatively, for 2019 annual ITRs, taxpayers may submit their filed ITR and the required attachments through eAFS.

1. Create an account under eAFS (https://eafs.bir.gov.ph/eafs/). Ensure to click the activation link emailed to the system user within 72 hours. Otherwise, the enrollment process will have to be repeated.

2. Scan the documents and save them as PDF files. The required attachments should be grouped into three files. Please refer to the full text of RMC 49-2020 for the required document groups and filenames for each attachment.

3. Upload the documents to eAFS.

4. Save the system-generated Transaction Reference Number/acknowledgement for successful submission that will be emailed to the system user. The Transaction Reference Number shall serve as proof of submission by the taxpayer in lieu of the document stamped as “Received.”

5. Keep the originals of the submitted scanned documents in accordance with existing regulations on records retention. Such must be readily available for presentation to the BIR upon request.

Source:

P&A Grant Thornton Certified Public Accountants

 

As published in SunStar Cebu, dated 10 June 2020