Palace: No need for lifestyle check on professionals, self-employed

A Malacañang official on Monday said a lifestyle check is no longer needed to convince professionals and self- employed Filipinos to pay their correct taxes. Ricky Carandang, head of the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office, answered in negative when asked at a press briefing if there is a need to conduct lifestyle checks. "We’re hoping na nakikita naman nila [na] hindi naman nasasayang ‘yung pera. We’re hoping that out of their own free will... they will be more compliant than they have been in the past," Carandang said. In an interview with BusinessMirror, Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares said her agency is set to conduct lifestyle checks on professionals to urge them to pay their proper taxes. She said of the 3 million professionals in the country, only 195,000 are paying their taxes based on the BIR database. In his second State of the Nation Address last week, President Benigno Aquino III said the country has around 1.7 million self-employed and professional taxpayers such as lawyers, doctors, businessmen who paid a total of 9.8 billion pesos in 2010. "This means that each of them paid only an average of 5,783 pesos in income tax—and if this is true, then they each must have earned only 8,500 pesos a month, which is below the minimum wage. I find this hard to believe," Aquino said. The President said that since the people can now see that taxes are going where they should, there is no reason not to pay the proper taxes. "I say to you: it’s not just the government, but our fellow citizens, who are cheated out of the benefits that these taxes would have provided," Aquino said. Carandang echoed the sentiments of the President. "I think, at this point, people understand that they can trust that this government is using the taxpayers’ money for the proper reasons at wala namang nasasayang o nananakaw and we enjoin everyone to do their part including professionals and the self-employed," he said. — RSJ, GMA News