Henares wants to leave behind a reformed BIR so she can study medicine afterwards

By: InterAksyon.com
Published: August 1, 2013 5:40 PM

Kim S. Jacinto-Henares now gets recognized wherever she goes.

People want their photos taken with her--just like a celebrity--and she gamely obliges.
However, she feels ambivalent about this new-found recognition.

After all, Henares seeks to wean Filipinos away from being personality-centered, an aspiration that fits in with the list of things she wants to accomplish as the head of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), the Philippine government's largest source of funds.

If there's just one legacy she wishes to leave at the BIR, it is this: she’d like to leave a system that works, no matter who’s at the helm.

She’s not out to please anyone--except maybe the President--and is focused on implementing the law. Earlier, she said that if there are complaints regarding tax regulations, then people should go to Congress to change the rules. But while the rules are there, it's her job to implement them, she said.

So what’s behind the woman behind BIR’s first trillion-peso collection, which, in turn, is partly responsible for credit ratings agencies’ upgrade of the Philippines to investment status?

For one thing, she's a straight arrow. She's a diligent worker too.

Having headed the bureau for the past three years, she believes that only 10 percent of the agency's 12,000 employees are rotten eggs. However small, that number is still enough to put the whole institution in disrepute.

Despite that, Henares wants the bureau's employees to be exempted from the Salary Standardization Law, allowing the agency to give incentives based on merits. She recognizes that its tough for an examiner to collect millions in taxes and earn just above minimum wage.

She would also rather not trumpet to the public the few BIR personnel who are and have been investigated either administratively thru an internal group or by the Department of Finances RIPS (Revenue Integrity Protection Service) or by the Ombudsman.

"We don’t announce to the world because there is no need," she said. "It only becomes noisy when the person involved complains and bring the case all the way up to the civil service or in court."

She also admits it might be close to impossible to stamp out corruption even as she has given the agency's employees the chance to be part in the reforms.

"When I came in, I told them that this is your chance for change. And as far as I’m concerned from this point onward, you do what is right you don’t have anything to fear and I won’t make any judgment but that doesn’t mean that I’m absolving you from past sins," she said.

The bad eggs were unable to prevent the bureau from surpassing a trillion-peso collection under her watch, something which she refuses to claim credit for.

"It will eventually happen," she said. "Someone will eventually hit that mark because of increasing targets, it just so happened that it did during our time."

Small, medium-sized businesses take extra effort to pay taxes

Thanks to reforms at the bureau, owners of small to medium-sized businesses have taken extra efforts to pay taxes.

New regulations have made it tougher for businesses to cheat on their taxes, said Tin Ferrera, an entrepreneur and accountant handling the books of several companies.

But at the same time, the BIR should also find ways to make it easier for businesses to remit their obligations, Ferrera said.

She said small and medium-sized enterprises which cannot afford to purchase expensive accounting systems use Microsoft Excel, which is not accredited by the BIR.

"I think the BIR should make it easier for taxpayers also," she said.

As a condo owner, Ferrera also doesn’t agree with a bureau regulation charging taxes on association dues of subdivisions and condo units. "These should not be considered income as they use the money to provide services and make the area livable for the residents. The association will pass on that tax to the residents, making it more burdensome," she said.

Paul Farol, a writer, blogger, and head of a family with a child requiring special care, shared Ferrara's concerns.

As a member of the employed middle-class, who pays 20 to 25 percent of his income in taxes, Farol expressed frustration that he's getting very little in the way of government services.

"An employee who makes P50,000 a month with say, one child automatically gets deducted Php 10,751," Farol said. "Add the Pag-ibig, SSS, and Philhealth deductions, it adds up to P11,788. In one year, he would’ve given the government P141,000 in taxes. Higher than his one child's tuition fee in a private school. But what services are the middle class getting?"

"Hindi naman sa minamata ang mga mahihirap pero lahat ng disaster aid goes to them. You look at the usual informal settler community, that’s where all the health services go, the police, the fire brigade its usually deployed in the poorer areas because that’s where incidents needing them usually happen," he said. "The middle class don’t benefit from subsidized schooling, they don’t send their kids to public schools.”

Farol added: "We're hoping for more services for the middle class. We’re nine percent answering for 20 percent of the tax basket [based on an SWS survey]. Like transportation, if you have a car, you pay for maintenance or repair of roads. If you take public transport, anong state ng MRT at LRT natin? Transportation costs for the ordinary employee is P100-120 a day. Malaki yun. Kung yun lang ang masosolusyunan malaki igagaan sa empleyado."

The Philippines' tax chief recognizes these sentiments as valid.

However, being focused on the task at hand, she said she can only do so much and does not bother herself with what is not under her powers as BIR chief.

She said she wants her reforms in the BIR in place by 2014, and intends to pass on a system that works for her successor.

Which explains why by 2016, after President Aquino's term, she’d like to enroll in medical school and pursue her dreams to be a doctor.

Who knows? Maybe we’ll see her heading the Department of Health after she earns her medical degree.

Source: http://www.interaksyon.com/article/67735/cherie-mercado--henares-wants-to-leave-behind-a-reformed-bir-so-she-can-study-medicine-afterwards