The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), under the leadership of commissioner Caesar R. Dulay, started the year 2017 with the issuance of Revenue Memorandum (RMC) No. 05-2017 enumerating its priority programs to achieve the following principal objectives: (1) Attain collection targets. (2) Improve taxpayer satisfaction. And (3) Protect revenues and recapture public trust.

As a taxpayer, focus is made on the "Improve Taxpayer Satisfaction" objective of the BIR. To address this, BIR is to review and recall, if warranted, revenue issuances which impose unnecessary burden on taxpayers and to adhere with the commitment to ease doing business. With this in mind, we take a look into the various issuances of the BIR in 2017 that eased doing of business and/or unburdened the taxpayer, and have come up with the following, among others

• Revenue Memorandum Order (RMO) No. 08-2017 - This RMO provided in claiming preferential tax treaty benefits on dividends, interest and royalty income of non-residents. The existing RMO No. 72-2010 requires the filing of a Tax Treaty Relief Application (TTRA) before the first taxable event, together with a long list of documentary requirements. With the new RMO, although limited only to dividends, interest and royalty income at the moment, there is still a need to file a Certificate of Residence for Tax Treaty Relief (CORTT) form. But, unlike the TTRA, only a Certificate of Residency of the country of residence of the non-resident income recipient shall be attached to the CORTT form.

A look at 2017 from the eyes of a taxpayer