BIR chief to speak at Creba business meet

MANILA, Philippines - BIR Commissioner Joel L. Tan-Torres will speak in the 3rd business meeting of the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders’ Associations (CREBA). This was announced by Florentino S. Dulalia Jr., who took over as Creba national president in January this year. Creba will hold the business meet on March 25, 2010 at 12 noon at the Intercontinental Hotel in Makati City.

Dulalia personally invited Tan-Torres to address the 3rd Creba Meet when he and his group paid the commissioner a courtesy call early last month. During the courtesy call, Dulalia and his group submitted a number of concerns of the housing and real estate industry which the commissioner promised to address. Among the said concerns are the rationalization of the zonal valuation system. Creba also offered to extend all assistance to strengthen the BIR’s tax collection campaign.

Tan-Torres was appointed BIR chief on Nov. 27, 2009. Prior to this appointment, he was the senior deputy commissioner, having been appointed to this position last August 2009, pursuant to Executive Order No. 827.

Previously, Tan-Torres was a partner of tax servi-ces of Sycip Gorres Velayo & Co. (SGV) where he was connected for over 12 years before his departure last March 2009. His major clients in SGV included multinational and large firms in the manufacturing, insurance, real estate, technology manufacturing, service sector and industries. He headed the Family Wealth Planning Service in the said firm.

Before joining SGV in 1996, he was with the Bureau of Internal Revenue for over 16 years, holding among others, the positions of assistant commissioner for management and planning, chief of the International Tax Affairs Division, member of the Philippine Tax Treaty Negotiation Panel and technical assistant to various commissioners and deputy commissioners of the BIR. He has been regularly consulted by the BIR, the Department of Finance and Congress in the drafting of revenue regulations for the R-VAT Law, the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program and other tax measures. He is also a regular resource person and lecturer in seminars and conferences in the Philippines and abroad.

He was the president of Tax Management Association of the Philippines in 2004. He was formerly the chairman of the tax committee of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He is co-author of the book on Tax Reform Act of 1997 entitled “Know your CTRP”, and has written several articles on taxation printed in newspapers and tax publications here and abroad. He is invited occasionally to talk in seminars and fora locally and abroad.

Tan-Torres is a cum laude graduate of the University of the Philippines in Business Administration and Accountancy. He placed number one in the May 1979 CPA board examinations.