REVENUE MEMORANDUM CIRCULAR NO. 57-2014 issued on July 22, 2014 clarifies the provisions of Revenue Regulations (RR) No. 1-2013 on the use of Electronic Tax Remittance Advice (eTRA).

         Under the said provisions, all National Government Agencies (NGAs) are mandated to enroll with and use the Electronic Filing and Payment System (eFPS) in their filing of their applicable tax returns within the prescribed periods specified in the Order.

        For all NGAs which are exercising proprietary functions, BIR Form Nos. 1702, 1702Q, 2550M, 2550Q, 2551M and 2000 shall likewise be filed within the corresponding indicated periods using the Bureau’s eFPS facility. However, the taxes due thereon shall be paid through the bank debit system of the eFPS’ Authorized Agent Banks where the NGA should be duly enrolled, and not through the eTRA System, considering that the said tax returns are not available in the eTRA System for the payment of the taxes due thereon.

      Based on the foregoing clarification, it can be said that the eTRA System covers only the payment of withholding taxes through the eTRA generated therefrom and, therefore, does not cover other internal revenue taxes. Moreover, considering that the eTRA System is mandated to be used as the platform for the payment of the withholding taxes, it is deemed understood that manual forms of TRA are no longer needed and, therefore, prohibited to be used by NGAs, unless the use of manual TRA forms are expressly allowed by written issuance or advisory issued by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue under certain exceptional circumstances.