Taxpayers may now pay their taxes online via PESOnet with the soft launch of a digital tax payment system by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).
This made BIR the first government agency to introduce an online payment system, Finance Undersecretary Antonette Tionko said in a statement.
“This will help achieve the Duterte administration’s goal of financial inclusion for all Filipinos while improving the ease of doing business in the country,” she said.
The PESOnet system is aimed at providing an “interoperable digital bills payment service that is safe, reliable, efficient, and will benefit a greater number of Filipinos”, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said in the same statement.
Participating banks are the Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) and the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC).
Tionko said they hoped to bring in more banks that will be allowed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to participate in the system.
“The success of the pilot will allow the BSP to confidently approve the expansion of this service to all interested financial and commercial institutions,” Tionko said.
PESOnet is under the National Retail Payment System (NRPS) framework instituted by the BSP.
The BIR’s digital tax payments service is part of the United States-funded E-PESO project of the BSP, the Philippine Payments Management, Inc. (PPMI), and BSP-supervised financial institutions (BSFI).
E-PESO, which is being implemented with assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), aims to support the shift to a digital economy from the current cash-based economy of the Philippines.
Through the E-PESO project, USAID is also assisting Batangas City, Valenzuela City, Quezon City, Municipality of Pulilan, Iloilo City, Cagayan de Oro City and Zamboanga City in effort to transition collection of taxes and business permits as well as the payout of social benefits from cash to electronic mobile money-enabled systems. (Ventures Cebu)
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