Where to, social media ‘influencers?’
“The bureau raised the Sword of Damocles with its claim or sheer bluff that it’s conducting a nationwide monitoring of socmed influencers in the virtual stratosphere.
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“The bureau raised the Sword of Damocles with its claim or sheer bluff that it’s conducting a nationwide monitoring of socmed influencers in the virtual stratosphere.
Not very long ago, the taxman ran after doctors, lawyers, and showbiz personalities. No one remembers if an accompanying law was legislated by Congress to implement that campaign other than the bureau concerned merely issued revenue regulations.
Now comes the taxman again, with a vengeance, wanting to file charges against social media "influencers" who have not yet registered, on a voluntary basis, much less paid, taxes to the Bureau of Internal Revenue. It should be something novel how, in a non-modified way, socmed influencers would go about complying with the tax laws.
The funny part is how this scare created a "shark attack effect" on the virtual beach of digital creators or artists — whatever you may call them — since the whole process is purely voluntary. The bureau also realized that the income derived by influencers come from technology giants based abroad over, admittedly, it has no jurisdiction.
So what the bureau does is send requests to these personalities or entities with the hope that they would voluntarily submit information on how they receive income of some "exponential" proportion. If they fail to respond, they are sent "letters of authority," if not outright face tax evasion charges.
The bureau raised the Sword of Damocles with its claim or sheer bluff that it's conducting a nationwide monitoring of socmed influencers in the virtual stratosphere. Whatever happened to the professed crackdown since 2021 of some 250 socmed celebrities who, it thought, earned millions of pesos and received free products in exchange for product or brand promotion?
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It hard to think that the mere disregard of letter requests or even of letters of authority could constitute tax evasion unless and until the grounds for the imposition of a supposed criminal offense are laid down with extreme clarity.
Indeed, there is Revenue Memorandum Circular 97-2021 which states that the income of socmed influencers, in cash or in kind, from rendering service through social media platforms are generally subject to regular income tax, unless these are subjected to a final tax or exempted by law.
Interestingly, the subject memo (Taxation of Any Income Received by Social Media Influencers) is addressed to "AII Revenue Officers, Employees and Others Concerned."
Per the circular, the term "social media influencers" includes all taxpayers, individuals or corporations, receiving income, in cash or in kind, from any social media sites and platforms (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, Snapchat, etc.) in exchange for services performed as bloggers, video bloggers or "vloggers," or as influencers, in general, and from any other activities performed on such social media sites and platforms." Is the reference clear enough?
If we read further, viz.: "Social media influencers other than corporations and partnerships are classified for tax purposes as self-employed individuals or persons engaged in trade or business as sole proprietors and, therefore, their income is generally considered business income." Again, isn't this crystal clear?
The unsettling issue remains that the income of these influencers come from big tech companies based abroad over which the bureau lacks jurisdiction. Ergo, if the influencer does not voluntarily comply, how then can the BIR go as far as to demand from foreign tax jurisdictions or foreign corporations the much-needed information?
For now, in the real get-go of this "internet of things," no one can police it because not only is it impossible to do so but more so because it is unnecessary to even attempt it. It seems strange for the tax bureau to look at digital technology as "disruptive" rather than use it to perfect its revenue generation over traditional forms.
Chasing one or a thousand or a million unregistered or non-paying socmed influencers to pay taxes is akin to searching for the needle in the haystack. Why not have Congress first pass a relevant law to unbundle the mechanics of the taxing process over them in an aboveboard manner and with clarity?
