LAOAG CITY – The Bureau of Internal Revenue has reminded taxpayers to verify their correct tax identification numbers (TIN) before making their payments to avoid delays caused by incorrect use of TINs.
Walter Garcia, chief of BIR’s document processing section, said the most common error committed during tax payments is the payor’s incorrect use of TIN.
“If you failed to state the correct TIN, the payment will not be credited in your ledger card,” he said.
Garcia noted that there are cases where the TIN used belongs to another taxpayer.
“If you used another payor’s TIN, then the payment will be credited to that TIN owner’s account,” he added.
In cases where payors use incorrect TINs, the BIR will classify them as either suspended return – where the payment will be recorded but it will not be consolidated under the payor’s name or open case return – where no record will show that the payor made any payment but will still corrected once the payor shows the receipt that he made the payment.
Garcia said the bureau’s computerized system was not designed to correct the errors that payors committed.
“The system was merely designed to make a monthly report of all the suspended returns. That’s why we have error handlers to correct them,” he said.
The BIR has employed personnel whose sole task is to correct tax returns that contain errors that the payors committed.
Garcia said the BIR is not authorized to make any correction in the tax returns before these are recorded in the bureau’s database.
“We have to record whatever information stated in the return which the payer made to the best of his knowledge, in good faith and under oath,” he said.
He added there are instances where the bureau notifies the payor to appear before its office and make the necessary correction. (Cristina Arzadon – PIA Ilocos Norte)
