BIR faces continued tech problems

MANILA, Philippines — The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has expressed concern over the prolonged inaccessibility of its electronic tax integrated system (eTIS), which it said has caused disruptions in the agency’s operations.

In a message to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, Internal Revenue commissioner Caesar Dulay said the eTIS has been down since July 3 and has yet to be brought back up.

The problem happened due to technical problems at the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Data Center, the BIR said in an advisory.

To expedite the resolution of the problem, Dulay said the BIR has already written to Information and Communications Technology Secretary Eliseo Rio regarding the issue.

“We already sent a letter to the DICT...but even before that, the Information System Group has been following up with them the early resolution of the eTIS issue,” Dulay told Dominguez.

A copy of the letter, dated July 11, showed that the BIR has asked the DICT Data Center Support Team to move more expediently.

Dulay also asked the DICT to provide a timeline as to when the DICT’s hardware, which hosts the core BIR system and electronic services, will be restored.

In the letter, the BIR expressed “a very serious concern” over the continued inaccessibility of its electronic system as it could hamper the agency’s collection performance.

“We are now expressing a very serious concern. The prolonged unavailability or inaccessibility of eTIS will ultimately have dire consequences on revenues collected or generated by LTS (Large Taxpayers Service) and RR (Revenue Region) Makati,” Dulay said.

Launched in 2015, eTIS is a web-based platform which consists of eight functions.

These are the taxpayer registration system, returns filing and processing, collection, remittance and reconciliation, audit, case management system, taxpayer accounts system, batch architecture module, and system administration management.

According to the BIR, the inaccessibility of the eTIS system has so far affected the generation of tax identification numbers particularly by the LTS and RR-Makati.

In the meantime, Dulay said the affected offices are using the BIR’s Integrated Tax System (ITS) until the issue is resolved.