BIR to malls: Don't do business with unregistered tenants

Mall operators should not allow in their establishments tenants that are not registered with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), the tax agency said Thursday. “We have issued a regulation that mall operators should make sure their tenants are registered," BIR Commissioner Kim Henares said in a press conference. The regulation is already in place and various BIR district offices will be checking on compliance of mall operators to the ruling, she noted. Henares said mall operators would be held liable if their tenants are found guilty of violating BIR business and tax requirements, like issuing receipts for goods and services. The BIR chief said the bureau continues to intensify its efforts to meet its collection goal. BIR collections in the nine months to September reached P686.26 billion, up by P78.93 billion of 13 percent year-on-year. But compared to the BIR’s target, the January-September collections fell short by P7.89 billion or 1.14 percent . “It is evident that there are still people who continue to pay less tax than what they are supposed to under the law. It is only fair to those paying correctly that we run after those that do not," Henares said. — VS, GMA News