Bureau of Internal Revenue
The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) issued the following on 19 February 2025:
Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) No. 14-2025, clarifying certain issues pertaining to the mandatory requirements for tax credit or refund of excess/unutilized creditable withholding taxes (CWT) on income pursuant to Section 76(C) of the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997, as amended (Tax Code).
The following are the salient points of the RMC:
- The transmission of documents such as the BIR Form No. 2307 is not limited to the physical delivery of documents from the sender to the receiver. Since the transmission could also be through digital means (such as but not limited to electronic mails, facsimile, cellphones, or other emerging technologies), the copies produced and submitted by the recipient of BIR Form No. 2307 may not necessarily be the original copy. [Q&A No. 1]
- The authenticity and veracity of the claimed BIR Form No. 2307 can be ascertained by the BIR if the CWT claimed per Summary Alphalist of Withholding Agents of Income Payments Subjected to Withholding Tax at Source (SAWT) matches with the annual or quarterly Alphalist of Payees submitted by the withholding agents of the taxpayer. [Q&A No. 1]
- For consistency of application, the third item in Annex A.1 shall now read as “Copies of duly accomplished Certificate of Creditable Tax Withheld at Source (BIR Form No. 2307) or Withholding Tax Remittance Return for Onerous Transfer of Real Property Other Than Capital Asset (BIR Form No. 1606), whichever is applicable, issued by the payor (withholding agent) to the payee”. [Q&A No. 1]
- For the taxpayer-claimant engaged in real estate business, a reproduction of the original copy of the BIR Form No. 1606 would suffice since the processing office is mandated to verify from the BIR database if the said form was indeed filed by the taxpayer-claimant to establish the authenticity and veracity of the said document. [Q&A No. 2]
- Individual taxpayers may anchor their claim for unutilized CWT under Section 58(E) in relation to Section 204 of the Tax Code. A new set of mandatory requirements will be prescribed for individual taxpayers who intend to claim for tax credit or refund unutilized CWT pursuant to said provisions of the Tax Code. However, the general policies and guidelines in the mandatory documentary requirements in RMC No. 75-2024 and the procedures in the processing hereof pursuant to Revenue Memorandum Order (RMO) No. 25-2024 remain the same for both corporate and individual taxpayer-claimants. [Q&A No. 3 and 4]
- Once the claim for income tax credit has been filed or an Electronic Letter of Authority (eLA) has been issued covering the same period of the claim, the taxpayer-claimant is already precluded from amending the tax returns. Only the tax returns filed on or before the receipt of the application shall be considered in the evaluation of the claim and any discrepancies may result to the disallowance of the portion of the claim or full denial thereto. [Q&A No. 5]
- The Annexes in this RMC correspondingly amends Annexes “A.1”, “A.2” and “A.4” of RMC No. 75-2024 to effect the changes in the documentary requirements.
RMO No. 8-2025, amending certain provisions and procedures under RMO No. 25-2024 in the processing of tax credit or refund of excess/unutilized CWT on income pursuant to Section 76(C), in relation to Sections 204(C) and 229 of the Tax Code.
The following are the salient points of the RMO:
- Section I(6) of RMO No. 25-2024 is amended to state that the burden of proof of withholding is incumbent upon the taxpayer claiming for the income tax credit/refund. No income tax refund shall be granted unless the authenticity and veracity of the BIR Form No. 2307 or BIR Form No. 1606, whichever is applicable, has been verified. The RMO also provided for guidelines to establish the authenticity of the said forms.
- For the verification and reporting, the assigned revenue officer (RO) and group supervisor (GS) shall process and evaluate the claim based on the submitted documents and investigation procedures prescribed in the RMO.
- For data/documents requested from the BIR offices other than the processing office, either manually or electronically, the following rules shall govern:
- The assigned ROs shall within 30 days upon official receipt of the application for income tax credit/refund, request for the pertinent document/s from the appropriate BIR office; and
- The BIR office where the data/document/s is/are being requested shall furnish the requesting processing office the requested data/document/s within 15 days from receipt of such request.
- To align the procedures in the verification of claims for income tax credit/refund following the above amendments, Annexes D.1 and D.2 of RMO No. 25-2024 are also amended.
Here are the links to the full texts of the issuances: RMC No. 14-2025 and RMO No. 8-2025.