As of October 14, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has received 14,820 applications for clearance from importers and customs brokers.
During a Senate hearing on port congestion last week, Rosana San Vicente, chief of the BIR-Accounts Receivables Monitoring Division (ARMD), said almost 9,000 applications have been processed and a total of 5,154 will be acted upon by the end of November.
Of the almost 9,000 processed applications, only about 2,000 were issued regular Importer Clearance Certificate (ICC) and Broker Clearance Certificate (BCC), while the bulk was given provisional clearances.
The “outstanding unprocessed” 5,154 applications for ICC and BCC were “left behind” for not meeting the criteria set forth by Revenue Memorandum Order (RMO) 10-2014, San Vicente said.
The BIR official gave the assurance that ARMD will issue either a notice of approval or a notice of denial to holders of provisional clearances before the six-month period authorizing them to transact with the Bureau of Customs (BOC) expires.
Under the new process of accreditation set by the Department of Finance (DOF) in February this year, importers and customs brokers must secure an ICC or BCC with the BIR before proceeding with the second phase of accreditation with the BOC.
Two months’ processing
During the hearing, Melissa Chua of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce pointed out that BIR takes two months to process an application.
San Vicente said that while RMO 10-2014 mandates that BIR act on applications 15 days upon their receipt, the sudden implementation by the DOF of the new accreditation process in February caused a volume surge in applications, reaching 13,000 by July.
However, there was no increase in the number of personnel at ARMD, which also oversees the country’s accounts receivables, to handle the deluge, she said.
San Vicente had proposed the creation of a task force or a division in BIR to handle the new process, but because the budget for 2014 had already been established, additional personnel could not be hired.
“It’s an internal problem,” San Vicente admitted.
Reacting to complaints that it takes about two months to apply for accreditation, San Vicente said under the rules new importers are required to use BIR’s electronic filing and payment system for at least two consecutive months.
She also noted that checking tax compliance of applicants using the 10 criteria set forth under RMO 10-2014 was difficult.
BIR revenue attorney Nina Asuncion said processing of applications is taking time because many had pending assessments with revenue district offices or collection districts. – Roumina Pablo
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