“If you look at history, innovation doesn’t come just from giving people incentives; it comes from creating environments where their ideas can connect.”

This is what Eddie Leo A. Galera II, the Revenue District Officer of RDO No. 112 Tagum City, and the entire personnel have been doing in his 7 months as head of office--- introducing few local innovations and initiatives in the District to better improve the experience not only of the taxpayers but also of the employees. Let’s go through each of them and get know their impact.

1. E-TCI or the Enhanced TIN Card Issuance. As an added value to the existing TIN Card Issuance, TIN Cards issued through E-TCI system is already laminated with picture and e-signature, and released on the same day of processing. This project has gained popularity in the Province after the article (on E-TCI) was published in DavNor Karon, the official facebook page of Davao del Norte province whose governor, Gov. Edwin I. Jubahib, was crucial to its success by providing the needed hardware and software. As of June 6, 2022 there are about 1,099 enhanced TIN cards generated through E-TCI. Another notable feature is the automated report generation wherein necessary reports in the CSS can be generated in just a click, promoting timely and accurate reports.

With the E-TCI system, fake TIN Cards are eliminated as the taxpayer himself/herself needs to personally transact for the picture and e-signature to be taken.

2. ELagii or Electronic Local Access for Generation and Interactive Information – This is a special project whose main objectives include automation of the RO Assessment Monitoring (RAMeiro), generation of Assessment Section reports and RAMeiro Annnexes, and provision of access to application using android, apple or PC for Revenue Officers, Supervisors, Chief Assessment Section (CAS), and Revenue District Officer (RDO).

The monitoring of investigation with Electronic Letter of Authority (eLA) using the eLAgii system provides the above users timely update on the progress of the eLAs assigned per RO by logging in to the system. This is currently being used by the Assessment Section and the Module 1 of this project is now at 90% progress and major bugs in the system were already resolved.

3. BRCM – Business Registration Cross Matching - With the implementation of this project through crossmatching the list of businesses registered with Business Processing and Licensing Office (BPLO) versus list of taxpayers registered in the Bureau, it is expected to update taxpayer’s registration so that the true and existing nature or line of business as verified and reflected per BPLO database is the same with that reflected in the BIR system, be used as source data for enforcement activities, identify unregistered taxpayers, and use to create database for taxpayers eLA investigation, among others.

Currently, letters to LGU have been served to their respective municipalities and few of the LGUs already submitted data which is now being used by the Compliance Section in verifying the exact address of the taxpayers for the letter notices.

To aid its implementation, a system will be developed for the cross-matching of data. First phase of the implementation is to filter those matched data (BPLO vs. RDC data), and the remaining unmatched data/records will be assigned to the Revenue Officers (Assessment) for further verification. If found to be unregistered, these will be subjected to focused TCVD and possible taxes due shall be enforced for collection.

4. RDO 1-1-2our. As the top management in the Regional Office pushed the District Offices to be innovative in its 2021 ITR filing campaign, the “RDO 1-1-2our Caravan” was then introduced. Patterned after its RDO number, "RDO 1-1-2our (one-one-tour) Caravan" is a pop-up filing center of the BIR through a moving vehicle which will stop at a designated place to render services. This innovation provided assistance to taxpayers, ensuring that BIR services reached even in the far areas of the District. The caravan operated in two priority municipalities namely Island Garden City of Samal last April 11-12, 2022 and Municipality of Nabunturan in April 13, 2022. The total number of transactions and number of taxpayers served by the Caravan is as follows:

*ITR Filing (Assistance and Acceptance of Payments & Returns) – 260

*ONETT Concerns (computation and queries) – 16

*Business Registration Concerns – 83

*TIN Issuance (1904 - EO 98 and ONETT) – 29

*Other CSS matters - 6

*Tax Mapped Establishments - 933

Its operation was well received by the taxpayers, especially in IGaCOS. With its success in the Island, City Mayor Al David T. Uy, offered an office space that can be used by the BIR for free to render regular services, to which RDO Galera enthusiastically accepted and endorsed to the Regional Director for its approval.

5. Samal Satellite Office – After the 1-1-2our caravan’s success, the BIR was offered a space in the Island. To fast track its realization, the local government allotted an area within the New Cityhall building to be the temporary office while waiting for the bigger and exclusive space for the BIR. Launched last May 2022, it is the third satellite office of the BIR next to Camiguin and Boracay.

The Satellite Office in the Island operates on a twice-a-month basis, from 8:00AM to 5:00PM. Services available include:

*Client Support Section Transactions - TIN Issuance, New Business Registration, Authority to Print, Registration Updates, Registration of Books of Accounts

*One-Time Transactions (ONETT) - Capital Gains Tax Computation, Estate Tax Computation, Donors Tax Computation

*Other BIR Concerns

With the operation of the Samal Satellite Office on a regular basis, basic services are made accessible to the Samaleños saving them time, effort, and resources of travelling to the Tagum District Office.

6. Building Extension in the District Office – It is no doubt that the physical office of the District has now been improved and the one-window policy has been promoted, thanks to the previous RDO, Mary Ann B. Cervantes. But the major revamp of the building is not yet done. The office extension, whose request was initiated by RDO Cervantes, is duly supported by RDO Galera. He includes it as one the agenda during his meetings with Governor Edwin I. Jubahib. After few follow-ups, the request was granted and the Php1.8M worth of building extension will be added in the left wing of the building for the comfort of the taxpayers and employees. The implementation for the construction of the extension will commence in the 2nd semester of this year.

RDO Galera has indeed swayed into BIR’s digital transformation direction. As long as he heads this District, the implementation of these projects will continue, ensuring the delivery of quality service to the taxpayers and influencing the attainment of collection target and growth for the office.