Taxation 101 - Part 3

Third part of my taxation series...

I found myself back within the creepy walls of BIR Manila. This time I was early. I arrived a little past 8AM.

I went up to the 5th floor, where RDO-029 is located.

When I gave my forms, the officer told me to make the payment first. She gave me a payment form and after I completed the form, I went to the ground floor for the payment.

For taxpayers' convenience, there's a Landbank branch inside the BIR building, with a whopping "2" tellers.

It was still closed when I got there but there were already around 50 or so people waiting. These people were divided into 2 groups, one with bulk forms and the other for few forms.

The tellers are divided this way as well, so technically only 1 teller processes all the payments.

At first I didn't know about this setup, so I found myself joining the bulk forms group. When the bank opened, the guard came out with a piece of paper, which would contain the list of people.

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The moment he came out, chaos broke out, and everyone was trying to get their name on the list through some forms of flirting with guard.

I went to see what's happening and one of the "hired fixers" approached me and asked how many forms will I be processing.

I just call them "hired fixers" since they've probably been hired by business owners to go through the tedious process of lining-up for hours, and stamping hundreds of forms.

So I told her I only have one form. She was surprised and told me that I was in the wrong line. My innocent look seems to have some advantages. >:)

I transferred to the other line but I was already 41st. Some of those guys were already there even as early as 7AM. That was a really bad sign. :(

True enough, I waited from 9AM until 11:45AM before I reached the teller. It was a grueling experience. I'll explain why in my next post, but somehow I was able to endure it, thanks to "The Secret". :)

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After I made the payment, I ran back to the registration unit at the 5th floor. It was 11:50AM.

But to my disappointment, some guy who is not even in proper uniform told me get a photocopy of the payment form first. I asked them if they have a copier somewhere and he replied to me that all of their copiers have no inks.

At that moment I wanted to tell that guy "f*ck you", but I was able to control myself. I knew he was lying, just to make sure I wouldn't be consuming some of their lunch break. I just hope he doesn't get home alive. Just kidding. O:)

So I left the building in search of a copy machine. I was expecting several copiers around the area but to my surprise there were only two, and they're charging 2 pesos per page. O_o

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I had lunch at Port Area Grill and stayed for a few minutes before heading back to BIR. It didn't took me more than 15 minutes to have my registration processed.

However, I still need to come back for the Certificate of Registration and for the printed official receipts, which somehow, was the source of corruption for the low rank officers.

The BIR officer just took a scratch paper and gave it to me as a receipt for the printing service. I didn't know printing some few pages of receipts would cost 950 pesos. O_o

Anyhow, that was the end of part 3. I still have a couple of things to share but I'll just include them in my next post.

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To be continued...

Taxation 101 - Part 2

As I've have mentioned in my last post, we were required by the BIR to have a DTI permit before they would process our tax registration. So I went to the DTI office in Park n' Ride, Lawton to apply for a business name. For software consultants like me, we are classified under sole-proprietorship. It took me more than 4 hours to get my permit.

For those who would register their business someday, I've prepared a short guide...

The office opens at 8AM, if you arrive there at 8:30, you'll probably be getting number 50 and above, just like I did. :(

But before you could obtain that number you would have to wait outside for 30 minutes or so. Make sure you that have something to do, like reading a book or listening to a music player, otherwise it is going to be pretty boring. :|

Once you have obtained a number, you may leave the office, go somewhere else. SM Manila is just a few minutes away by foot. By the way, the guard might tell you to sit in the waiting area, just tell him you're going to the comfort room. >:)

After 2 hours, head back to the DTI office. Then tell the guard your number and he will insert you to your appropriate seat location, that is between two people who have now developed some hatred towards you. >:P

Try your best to ignore them. By this time, you should be on the front row, there will probably be around 5 to 7 people ahead of you but that's fine.

The next thing you would want to do is to make friends with you seat mates. If one of them wants to buy food or go to the toilet, tell him/her that you will save his/her seat.

Once he returns, you can have your turn. By the way, the entrance ticket for the comfort room costs 5 pesos. Yes, you can sell virtually anything in this country.

Note that the previous step is optional. That is going to depend on how near you are to being called.

Once you're called, proceed to the officer's window for processing. Make sure you have all the requirements with you, otherwise, they will ask you to come back after you've completed your requirements. You'll probably have to comeback on the next working day. o_O

Try to be nice when talking to the officer since some of them seems to have attitude problems. Smiling also helps. :)

After 5-10 minutes, you'll be sent to payment section. The registration fee is 300 pesos. After paying, you'll be asked to wait for your permit in window #9.

Check the time, if it's already past 11:30, just leave, and head for lunch. There's no way you're going to get your permit before lunch time. I learned this the hard way.

If possible, get back before 1PM, so you'll be able to secure a seat. And if everything goes well, you will be having your permit in no time. :)

But if you really don't want to spend too much time for this, just get there before 8AM. :)

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To be continued...

Taxation 101 - Part 1

The best way one could learn about Philippine Taxation is through experience. In my previous job, I never had to worry or even consider worrying about the details of taxes. I just knew that the government is "legitimately" stealing money from me and let my employer do all the dirty work (filling, registration, payment, etc.)

Ever since I became an independent software consultant, I can no longer depend on someone else to do these things for me. I had to learn to deal with my taxes.

Fortunately, there are people who are helping us. First is Loryfel's mom, who happened to be a lawyer. She's the one giving us legal advices and tips. Second is Ate Weng, she's the one doing all the accounting stuffs. She's also aiding us with our tax activities.

Together with Laila and Ate Weng, we embarked in an "enlightening" journey through Philippine taxation, red tape, bureaucracy and lunch breaks.

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1st stop was BIR Manila, where I should be paying my taxes. We got there around 10AM. I went to the comfort room before proceeding to the registration office. Their comfort room totally s*cked. It’s even worse than those shown in horror films. 2 urinals were labeled out of order, the other 2 were 'usable' but there was no flush.

We entered the office and gave our forms to the BIR officer. To our surprise, she asked for a PRC registration, a Mayor’s permit, or a DTI business registration. We told her that software engineers like us don’t have board exams so there’s no way we could have a professional license. Anyhow, that stubborn officer insisted that we obtain a DTI business registration first, so it left us no choice but to leave.

She advised us to go to DTI Buendia instead of the satellite office in Lawton since she thought it is going to be crowded there. We asked a couple questions regarding the DTI registration, and while we were discussing, she took my TIN and pulled some records from her computer, she discovered that I was previously registered in Taguig, so she told us to go to BIR Taguig first, to have my previous record updated and transferred to Manila. What the f*ck?

I was not really surprised by these. I knew something like that was bound to happen. But, just imagine what could have happened if she got lazy to check my existing record and just told us to comeback. :-?

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Our 2nd destination was DTI Buendia for the supposed “business” registration. As expected again, we were immediately fended off by the security guard while we were trying to find a parking space. He told us to go to DTI Lawton since they have implemented these distributed registration system to make it more “convenient” for people. Holy sh*t!

Since Lawton is out-of-way, we decided to skip DTI and proceed to BIR Taguig since the DTI permit probably won't be issued within the day.

We arrived at BIR Taguig around 11:16. They gave me some forms to fill-up. Then they made me go to 3 more stations for some verifications and signatures. We were lucky enough not to get caught with their lunch break, which would have probably cost us another hour. Actually, they were already on “lunch break” when we arrived, the officer who took my form even forgot where he left my form. Except for having a slightly better building than that of BIR Manila, everything else seemed to be same. There were a lot of employees but only a few were really doing something.

5 minutes before 12 Noon, I finally got my update form back. But the bad news is, it is going to take "at least" 5 working days in order for the transfer of record to the Manila server to complete.

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Our 4th destination was BIR Pasig, where Laila's records are located. Like me, she needs to have her record updated and transferred to Taytay, Rizal. But before that, we had lunch at Greenwich.

After we finished our family size pizza, we headed to the BIR Pasig office. Guess what? If the BIR Manila comfort room s*cked, the whole BIR Pasig office s*cked more. It was "absolute chaos". Several layers of men and women were in front of the BIR officers in a free for all filling or "piling" fest. Oh, they do give out number cards, it's just that no one is calling out those numbers.

Impressively, Laila was able to work her way around the miserable crowd and completed the processing in under 30 minutes. We left the BIR office afterwards.

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Our 5th and last stop was DTI Ortigas (in front of Megamall). It seemed that our luck has completely ran out. When we got to the DTI office, they were having some technical problems with their system and so the processing was very slow. The guard told us that there is no guarantee that we could be entertained before the cut-off time. We decided to wait for 30 minutes, with that hopes that the system will be fixed soon, and to our disappointment, the line never moved (only people in front leaving). We decided to return on a different day. :(

While waiting, I "accidentally" discovered that they have an unsecured wireless connection in the building. Since we are just outside the DTI office, I assumed that it is coming from the DTI office. Not only that their wireless connection is unsecured, their wireless router is accessible as well. I "accidentally" opened the administration page of their router, but I was "kind" enough not to screw up with the configuration or change the administrator password. >:)

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To be continued...