Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner Caesar Dulay has formed a task force in every regional office to investigate cooperatives generating unreported earnings beyond the scope of their incentives and tax exemption privileges.
“It is a common knowledge that many cooperatives were put up by spurious individual or group of individuals to escape payment of taxes,” said a revenue regional director.
The official who declined to be named said some of these cooperatives are into hospital, drug store, school and transportation businesses.
In signing Revenue Memorandum Order No. 7-2020, Dulay said the special teams will audit the financial statements “to monitor tax compliance of cooperatives and ensure the correctness of availment of tax exemptions.”
The BIR chief said revenue officers can look into the books of accounts of the cooperatives without securing prior clearance from the Cooperative Development Bureau as required under the Philippine Cooperative Code of 2008.
He said the old law is no longer applicable with the passage of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law.
Dulay said the investigation should give priority to cooperatives with accumulated reserves and undivided net savings of P10 million and more.
“Other cooperatives with income not related to the main business under their Articles of Cooperation shall likewise be among those covered for priority audit,” Dulay added. (Jun Ramirez)
