The Philippine Bureau of Customs (BOC) is looking at interconnecting with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) registration system to ensure only legitimate business entities and personnel transact with the agency.
This is in preparation for the eventual phaseout of the Interim Customs Accreditation and Registration (iCARE) unit.
Customs commissioner Rozanno Rufino Biazon said ICARE may be dissolved next year, noting the unit has failed to meet its objective of accrediting only legitimate entities and has even become a source of corruption at the BOC.
iCARE accreditation is a prerequisite to the BOC’s Client Profile Registration System accreditation, a requirement to transact electronically with the BOC.
Before dissolving iCARE, Biazon said BOC needs to link its system with the BIR registration system. “We are planning to use their database rather than have another system for the same purpose. The registration system of the BIR is more advanced than BOC’s so it will be more accurate to determine who are legitimate from those who are not.”
The BIR system features geo-mapping and GPS-enabled applications plus pictures showing the exact location of registered businesses, making tax mapping for the BOC easier.
The iCARE unit is only one of the BOC units facing dissolution when the agency’s new modernization system, called the Integrated Philippine Customs System, replaces the electronic-to-mobile system. The other up for phaseout is the Entry Processing Unit.
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