SC stops BIR policy requiring professionals, doctors to disclose rates to tax authorities

By: Tetch Torres-Tupas - 11 years ago

MANILA, Philippines—The Supreme Court on Tuesday stopped the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) from implementing new policy requiring professionals from disclosing their fees to tax authorities.

This time, the restraining order also covers doctors. An earlier restraining order was also issued covering lawyers.

The controversial BIR advertisement

“The Court acted on the motion for leave of court to file intervention and the attached motion for intervention filed by the Philippine College of Physicians by allowing the intervention and issuing a temporary restraining order against the BIR Revenue Regulation 4-2014 in favour of doctors this time,” high court’s information chief Theodore Te said in a press conference.

Both the Philippine College of Physicians and the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) filed separate petitions saying that Revenue Regulation 4-2014 titled “Guidelines and Policies for the Monitoring of Services Fees of Professionals” is unconstitutional.

RR 4-2014, dated March 3, requires all self-employed professionals to submit an “affidavit indicating the rates, manner of billings, and the factors they consider in determining their service fees upon registration and every year thereafter on or before Jan. 31.”

They were also required to submit their books of accounts and official appointment books, containing the names of their clients and the dates and time of the meetings.

Even in pro bono cases when no fee is charged, RR 4-2014 also requires lawyers to issue a BIR-registered receipt showing that a 100 per cent discount was given.

The IBP said the regulation issued by the BIR and the Department of Finance “encroaches upon the court’s exclusive authority and jurisdiction to regulate and prescribe rules” for the legal profession.

“The power to promulgate rules on the protection and enforcement of constitutional rights, pleadings and practice and the law profession is lodged exclusively in the Supreme Court, not in any other agency of government, least of all the Department of Finance and the Bureau of Internal Revenue,” the IBP said.

The IBP also said that both the Code of Professional Responsibility and the Rules of Court state that the lawyer-client relationship should be “strictly personal, fiduciary and highly confidential.”