Tax Alert No. 39 [Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) No. 95-2024 dated 27 August 2024]

05 Sep 2024

Clarifying Certain issues on the Filing of Monthly Documentary Stamp Tax Declaration by Electronic Documentary Stamp Tax (eDST) Taxpayers using BIR Form No. 2000 v 2018 pursuant to RMC No. 48-2024

Please be informed that RMC No. 95-2024 was issued to clarify and address certain issues on the filing of monthly documentary stamp tax declaration by eDST taxpayers using BIR Form No. 2000 v 2018 pursuant to RMC No. 48-2024.

The following table summarizes the issues/concerns and the clarifications thereon as provided in the Circular:

Issues	Clarifications
The additional requirement of filing BIR Form No. 2000 for declaring the total DST due from all taxable documents that were made, signed, accepted or transferred during the month considering that these taxable transactions are already encoded in the taxpayers' ledger of the eDST System as utilizations from their advance deposits.	Currently, BIR Form No. 2000, when used for the remittance of advance deposits by taxpayers-users of eDST System, is not yet a return, but a payment form. Due to certain limitations of the current format of BIR Form No. 2000 version 2018, it shall still be used separately in declaring the taxable transactions and in computing the total DST due by these taxpayers-users, pending the revision of the said form.
Due to the voluminous transactions of certain taxpayers-users, the encoding of these transactions in Schedule 1 (Summary of Computation of Taxes Due for the Month) on the said form had suddenly been suspended (i.e., continue to buffer or had "hanged") after an initial number of encoded transactions. This compels the taxpayers-users to terminate the encoding process. However, upon resumption, the previously encoded transactions were already lost.	The encoding of the Alphanumeric Tax Code No. 010 and the amount under the "Tax Due" column equivalent to the total tax due for the month reflected in the taxpayer's ledger of said system shall be sufficient in accomplishing the said schedule.
Inability to generate the form, or delay in filing the declaration due to several attempts to accomplish Schedule 1 and generate the form itself considering the prescribed number of days to file it (i.e., within five (5) days after the close of the month). As a consequence, the eFPS automatically computes the penalties due to the late filing of the form within the prescribed deadline for this obvious reason not attributable to the taxpayer.	The eDST taxpayer-user cannot be held liable for penalties computed by the eFPS because the DST due was already paid in advance in the form of deposit, and the utilizations thereof can be validated from the eDST system. Considering that the eFPS has no facility to distinguish whether the said form is being filed as a tax return or as a declaration, the corresponding amount for compromise penalty for late filing of the said form as a declaration shall be the proper penalty of the eDST user.
The total penalty computed by eFPS is based on the total tax due which can be a very significant amount on the part of the taxpayers as it is not proportionate to the violation of filing of a simple declaration within the prescribed deadline.	Considering the technical limitations of the eFPS in accomplishing Schedule 1 of the said form that involves voluminous transactions, the compromise penalties which are otherwise due from non-filing or late filing by eDST taxpayers-users of the said form as declaration covering the previous taxable months from the date of issuance of RMC No. 48-2024 shall no longer be assessed and collected.