Stamping Of Account Books By BIR
I am really confused whether taxpayers need to have their books of accounts with still unused pages re-stamped by Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR). The tax agency, through its former Commissioner Sixto S. Esquivias IV, issued Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) No. 82-2008 in November 13, 2008 which has this provision in its Section 1 – Manual books of accounts previously registered but whose pages are not yet fully exhausted can still be used in the succeeding years without the need of re-registering or re-stamping the same, provided that, the portions pertaining to a particular year should be properly labeled or marked by taxpayer. A complete copy of the circular can be downloaded at BIR website and I uploaded the same document in my Slideshare account for your easy reference.
What actually confused me was when our bookkeeper for I-Café Pilipinas, a newly registered non-profit organization, asked me for its books of accounts for re-stamping by BIR. Knowing the above RMC which did not get implemented last year because it came out late, I refused to give the books and asked her to inquire about the circular. She was told that we would incur a one thousand (PhP1,000.00) peso fine if we would not have it re-stamped. By the way, the old rule requires taxpayers to buy and register new books of accounts every year.
By manual books of accounts, we mean the Book for Cash Receipts (BCR), Book for Cash Disbursements (BCD), Book for General Journal (BGJ) and Book for General Ledger (BGL) which are actually columnar notebooks purchased from regular bookstores. The rate at which these books get used or consumed depends on the number of transactions that a business have in a year. In our experience, an Internet café would normally not exhaust the typical 50-page books of accounts in a year so there is no need to register new books every year.
The question is, should you or should you not have your current not-yet totally used books of accounts re-stamped by your BIR Revenue District Office (RDO)? I say, if you have to do it yourself because your RDO requires you, go on and have it re-stamped but have a copy of RMC 82-2008 with you and show it to BIR personnel so that they will know that you are aware of your rights as well as your obligations. Do not be surprised that some BIR personnel do not even know about the circular that you will show them.
Or maybe that BIR personnel is just hinting for some additional cash. They make the policies but they don’t even read them. That’s just lame. They shouldn’t be surprised that businesses find ways to avoid paying taxes to them.