Cabbies without receipts to face tax evasion raps

MANILA, Philippines - Taxi drivers will face charges of tax evasion if they fail to issue receipts to passengers as required under a new metering scheme that took effect on Monday.

Chairman Alberto Suansing of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) said taxi operators might also lose his or her franchise to operate because of their driver’s infraction. The Supreme Court has upheld the taxi-metering scheme, he added.

Suansing said only transactions below P20 are exempted from receipt requirement, based on rules and regulations issued by the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

Taxi passengers must demand a receipt and report erring taxi drivers to the LTFRB or to the BIR, he added.

Suansing said taxi receipts manually issued must be registered with the BIR and must bear the taxi’s name and plate number, operator’s address, and the time and date of the transaction.

However, operators must install in their taxis meters that would automatically issue receipts to passengers after a trip, he added.

Suansing advised taxi operators to install their device as soon as possible to spare their drivers’ additional burden.

“ It would better for them to have a device so that their drivers will not have a hard time issuing receipts manually,” he said.

Suansing said as of Monday the newly created LTFRB Accreditation Board (AB) has started to receive applications of taxi meter dealers accredited by the BIR.

The AB, headed by Reynaldo Dilay and Nida Coloma, reported that so far only NJ World Corp., which uses the Dragon pro taximeter, has applied for accreditation.

Suansing advised applicants for accreditation to present their product and software for testing and approval of the board.

The LTFRB-AB will scrutinize the application of NJ whether its products trade name and software were accredited by BIR and had complied with the specifications of BIR and LTFRB, he added.