The BIR will hold a summit with Shopee and Lazada in September
BIR — The Bureau of Internal Revenue will hold a summit with online shopping apps Shopee and Lazada in September in order to discuss a possible partnership to determine the sales of online sellers.
BIR Commissioner Lilia Guillermo said at the sidelines of the SGV Tax Symposium in Makati that the tax bureau will again start to monitor those who sell online in the coming weeks, particularly on online shopping apps.
According to her, they will only run after big-time online sellers, and that she has sought the help of Lazada and Shopee.
Although the BIR Commissioner didn’t give details of what constitutes a large online seller, she said that social media has a lot of data they can collect — including the number of followers and likes.
READ ALSO: BIR To Use “Big Data” To Identify Big-time Online Sellers, Influencers
Guillermo also revealed that the tax bureau will hold a summit with Lazada and Shopee next month in order to discuss a possible partnership to determine the sales of sellers.
According to her, they may be able to tap into the system of online providers.
“Medyo ngayon parang ayaw pa nila magbigay ng data sa amin, kasi privacy daw. But I think there’s no privacy law na inaano [violate] natin,” Guillermo said.
She also said that they will embark on digitalization efforts, adding that they have already trained some statisticians to become cybersecurity experts or data scientists.
Guillermo admitted that it would be hard to hire such experts for now as there are no plantilla positions yet, so they will be hiring consultants or training internally.
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