BIR planned to start affixing tax stamps on alcoholic drinks this year.
BIR — After years of delay, the Bureau of Internal Revenue planned to start affixing tax stamps on alcoholic drinks this year in order to better monitor excise payments.
The list of the tax bureau’s priority programs and projects issued by Internal Revenue Commissioner Caesar Dulay last January 20 included the integration of the alcohol industry in the enhanced internal revenue stamps integrated system (IRSIS).
According to the tax bureau, it wanted to develop a secure tax stamp for alcohol products.
Based on a report on Inquirer, products affixed with tax stamps meant that their importers and manufacturers paid correct excise prior to sale.
Beyond tax stamps, the tax bureau also wanted to tap IRSIS as a means to monitor alcohol manufacturers’ production volumes, removals from factories, as well as stamp inventory, to track taxable goods.
The tax bureau was currently implementing an enhanced IRSIS for tobacco products, which upgraded into a web-based application its information system managing the ordering, production, distribution, affixing, monitoring, as well as tracking of cigarette tax stamps.
The tax bureau’s large taxpayers service (LTS) had been tasked with coming up with tax stamps for alcoholic drinks, which had been in the pipeline as far back as the tenure of former BIR chief Kim Jacinto-Henares in the previous Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III administration.
Another round of excise tax hikes greeted consumers of cigarettes, vapes and electronic cigarettes, and alcoholic drinks in 2022 under two “sin” tax laws signed by President Rodrigo Duterte before the pandemic struck.
The government targeted revenues from e-cigarettes and cigarettes, as well as alcoholic drinks, amounting to PHP 199.6 billion for cigarettes and PHP 94.8 billion for e-cigarettes this year.
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The government needed to raise more revenues in order to finance the universal health care (UHC) program being implemented by PhilHealth (Philippine Health Insurance Corp.)
In all, the tax bureau had been tasked with collecting PHP 2.43 trillion in taxes this year.
On Thursday, Deputy Internal Revenue Commissioner Arnel Guballa said that the tax bureau has yet to finalize its actual 2021 collections figures, although the tax bureau targeted a PHP 2.08-trillion tax take last year.
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