MANILA – The Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) is meeting with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) on Friday to discuss how to make the business registration more efficient in this time of the pandemic.
The convening of the agencies involved in business registration is the part of ARTA’s efforts to ease doing business, particularly for online sellers.
On June 1, the BIR released Revenue Memorandum Circular No. 60-2020 which reiterates the obligations of persons conducting business transactions through digital means, such as but not limited to online retailers, to register with BIR pursuant to Section 236 of the Tax Code.
The ARTA supports the government initiative in requiring online sellers to register.
With the set deadline of registration on July 31, ARTA wants to see to it that the processes for registering will be done in the most efficient and least burdensome way for the citizens considering the pandemic situation.
“We need to find a win-able and rational solution. As in our mandate, let us pursue to apply a whole-of-government approach in promoting efficiency but without sacrificing public interest”, ARTA Director-General Jeremiah Belgica told the participating agencies in his opening remarks during the meeting.
“Let us be mindful that many of these online sellers could even be exempted to pay income tax having an annual income of less than PHP280, 000, so we also need to make their registration process seamless and almost effortless, especially during this pandemic,” he added.
Apart from meeting with the concerned government agencies, ARTA will also be conducting a stakeholder’s meeting for online sellers in the coming weeks to discuss the pertinent matters in their business registration experience.
Interested parties should email their intentions to [email protected]. (PR)
