Some 125 companies with pending duty drawbacks or tax claims may now start processing their claims at the Philippine Bureau of Customs (BOC).
Claimants of duty drawbacks or tax claims have 30 days after notification to go to BOC’s Revenue Account Division (RAD) and inquire about the status of their application, according to Customs Memorandum Circular (CMC) No. 119-2016, signed August 30 by Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon and published on BOC’s website on September 14.
The advisory came after the release of Customs Special Order (CSO) No. 36-2016, which dissolved the Tax Credit Committee Secretariat, and transferred all applications for duty drawbacks, value-added taxes (VAT), and excise tax claims under BOC’s Office of the Commissioner (OCOM).
READ: BOC commissioner’s office takes over tax credit, refund applications
Of the total applicants, 59 companies have pending VAT claims while 66 have duty drawback claims.
Under the CSO, claims for both duty drawbacks endorsed by the Department of Finance’s (DOF) One-Stop Shop (OSS) and approved claims for a VAT refund and excise taxes endorsed by either the DOF-OSS or the Bureau of Internal Revenue will be received by the OCOM first. This is so it can record the claims before these are forwarded to the RAD for payment verification and document check.
The RAD will certify the tax claims and endorse the refund amount to the Financial Management Office for confirmation then will issue a tax credit certificate and a disposition form for the customs commissioner’s signature. Once the form is signed, the Accounting Division will release the amount to the claimant.
In addition to processing the claims, the chief of RAD has also been authorized to issue the tax debit memo, which is used in the Tax Credit Certificate (TCC), through the BOC’s electronic-to-mobile system.
A TCC indicates the tariff duties and internal revenue taxes paid by a firm for the raw materials, supplies, and semi-manufactured supplies it used in making export products.
The TCC entitles the firm to a tax refund as part of an incentives package for local export-oriented firms. It is administered by a one-stop shop inter-agency tax credit center put up by the finance department in 1992. – Roumina Pablo
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
