REVENUE REGULATIONS NO. 3-2016 issued on March 23, 2016 prescribes the policies
and guidelines on the adoption of credit/debit/prepaid card payments as additional modes of
payment of internal revenue taxes.
The payment of taxes using the said modes of payment shall be voluntary or optional on
the part of the taxpayer. As such, the taxpayer shall bear the convenience fee and other fees
being charged by banks and/or credit card companies for the use of said payment facility. Such
fees, including the Merchant Discount Rate, shall, in no case, be deducted from any amount of
tax due to the BIR.
In the payment of taxes thru credit/debit/prepaid card, the taxpayer has the option to
choose from the available online payment facilities provided by the Electronic Payment Service
Provider (EPSP) for the processing of its/his/her tax payments.
The authority to accept tax payments thru credit/debit/prepaid cards, and act as Acquirers
shall be limited to Authorized Agent Banks (AABs) only. However, prior to the issuance of the
BIR notification to the concerned AAB for the latter’s authority to accept tax payments thru
credit/debit/prepaid cards, the following conditions shall be satisfied:
a. The Card Payment Information System of the AAB-Acquirer shall be tested and
approved by the BIR;
b. A Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the BIR and the AAB-Acquirer shall
have been entered into; and
c. The List of Card Issuers being enabled by the AAB-Acquirer shall be submitted to the
BIR before the execution of the SLA. Any addition, deletion or amendment to the
submitted list shall be reported in writing to the BIR within five (5) days after the
change(/s) or amendment(/s) thereto has/have been introduced.
The BIR shall neither have any responsibility nor liability on any issues concerning the
taxpayer-cardholder and the card issuer, including, but not limited to, “charge back”, erroneous
posting or charging, non-payment of the taxpayer-cardholder to the issuer and other issues.
In case the taxpayer-cardholder made erroneous tax payment transactions through the
prescribed payment mode, the same shall not give rise to any automatic “charge back” to the
taxpayer-cardholder’s account. In meritorious cases, the taxpayer shall apply for refund/tax
credit with the BIR in accordance with existing revenue issuances. Only the Philippine-issued
credit/debit/prepaid cards under the name of the taxpayer-cardholder shall be used in payment of
its/his/her tax liabilities.
The AABs-Acquirers shall be primarily responsible in ensuring that all payment
transactions, thru credit/debit/prepaid cards are accurately and timely reported to the BIR and
Bureau of Treasury (BTr), and the same are timely remitted to the latter. The time, manner and
format of reporting/submission/transmission of collection reports, and the tax remittance to the
BTr shall be in accordance with existing provisions of the Memoranda of Agreement among the
AABs, BIR and BTr, as well as with the provisions of Treasury Circular No. 03-2013 and other
relevant rules and regulations pertinent thereto.
Furthermore, in case the EPSP is not the AAB-Acquirer, the said EPSP shall
electronically transmit to the BIR pertinent details of all daily payment transactions and other
required information. The prescribed reports shall be electronically submitted by the EPSP
directly to the BIR on a daily basis not later than 9:00 a.m. of the following day. The penalties
for late transmission, procedural errors, late reporting and remittance shall be imposed pursuant
to existing rules and regulations.
The payment of taxes through credit/debit/prepaid card shall be deemed made on the date
and time appearing in the system-generated payment confirmation receipt issued to the taxpayercardholder by the AAB-Acquirer, provided that payment is actually received by the BIR
pursuant to these Regulations.
The taxpayer is not relieved of, and has a continuing liability for such taxes until the
payment is actually received by the BIR. This continuing liability of the taxpayer is in addition to
any liability of the AAB-Acquirer pursuant to the SLA entered into by the BIR and the AABAcquirer.
In the initial implementation of the said prescribed mode of tax payment, the taxpayer
shall electronically file the corresponding tax returns. Thereafter, and once the existing BIR
systems have been enhanced, the filing of the corresponding tax returns by the taxpayer, through
other channels or facilities shall be adopted.
The identity, security, authority, capability of the taxpayer-cardholder transacting with
the BIR using its/his/her credit/debit/prepaid card in tax payments and transmission of data shall
be secured through encryption and use of relevant industry-standard technologies.