Amending Certain Portions of Revenue Memorandum Order No. 4-89 Dated January 18, 1989, Relative to the Monitoring of Letters of Authority (LAs)

February 20, 1989 REVENUE MEMORANDUM ORDER NO. 12-89 SUBJECT : Amending Certain Portions of Revenue Memorandum Order No. 4-89 Dated January 18, 1989, Relative to the Monitoring of Letters of Authority (LAs) TO : All Internal Revenue Officers and Others Concerned AMENDMENTS: A. In addition to the list of LAs issued as prescribed in Annex A of RMO 4-89, another weekly report (Annex B, attached) is hereby prescribed to reflect any reassignment, loss, cancellation, or spoilage of LAs and reporting of cases covered by LAs during the particular week. 1. The column "Status of LA" reflects information on LAs issued, classified and coded as: (A) LA for which a report of investigation has been submitted; (B) cancelled LA after it has been issued and served to the taxpayer; (C) revalidated LA; (D) LA reassigned to another Revenue Enforcement Officer (REO); (E) LA cancelled before being issued or served; or (F) lost or missing LA. 2. In the column "Date Reported", indicate the date report of investigation was submitted, LA was cancelled, revalidated, reassigned, or reported as lost/missing or spoiled. 3. In the "Remarks" column, indicate: a) reason for cancellation of LA which was served to the taxpayer such as investigation was terminated by another audit/investigating unit, taxpayer cannot be located or availed of amnesty or last priority, or other reasons; b) number of times LA was revalidated, and the new LA number issued, if LA was revalidated; c) name of REO currently handling investigation for which LA has been issued and reassigned; and d) reason why LA was lost or missing. B. TIME FOR SUBMISSION OF LIST/REPORTS is amended to read as follows: "The aforesaid list of LAs issued shall be prepared daily Metro Manila revenue regions, revenue district offices, National Office Audit Divisions, and other special investigating units; and weekly by revenue offices outside Metro Manila. These shall be forwarded to the Chief, Management Information and Data Control Systems Division, not later than the following day and Wednesday of the immediately following week, respectively. "Copies of all LAs issued must accompany the lists to be submitted. The distribution of the copies of LAs issued pursuant to RMO 21-85 shall now be changed as follows: "(1) Original - taxpayer "(2) Duplicate - docket "(3) Triplicate - Service Chief/Regional Director/Assistant Regional Director "(4) Quadruplicate - to be attached to Annex A "(5) Dummy copy - to be retained by Revenue District Office, Audit Division, or the head of the audit unit/office. cdt "Where there are days of the week when no LAs are issued, such fact should be reported thus all working days are accounted for. In case there is no issuance of LAs for the entire week, all offices concerned (both within Metro Manila and outside Metro Manila shall submit the prescribed report of LA issued (Annex A RMO 4-89) with the notation of 'No LA issued for the week', to the Chief, Management Information and Data Control Systems Division, not later than Wednesday of the immediately following week. "Annex B shall be prepared in triplicate to be distributed in the same manner as Annex A and shall be forwarded to the Chief, Management Information and Data Control Systems Division not later than Wednesday of the immediately following week. Photocopies of the transmittal/indorsement by the head of the investigating unit of the reports of investigation shall be attached to Annex B. "The report of LA forms requisitioned shall be prepared by the Accountable Forms Division on a monthly basis and shall be forwarded to the Chief, Management Information and Data Control Systems not later than the first Wednesday of the immediately following month." C. PROCESSING OF LIST/REPORTS is amended to read as follows: "1. The Chief, Management Information and Data Control Systems Division, shall classify the list of LAs issued by Revenue District Offices and/or investigating units/offices/division and shall computerize the same for the purpose of: "a) generating data indicating workload of each revenue enforcement officer; "b) preventing the investigation of the same taxpayer by the same revenue enforcement officer within two consecutive taxable periods; "c) preventing the duplicity or multiplicity of the issuance of LAs by the different audit units for the same taxpayer and same taxable period. "d) preventing the issuance and service of LAs previously reported as cancelled/lost/spoiled; "e) preventing the use of LAs by different investigating office other than the requisitioning office. "2. The Assistant Commissioner (Planning and Research) shall furnish monthly a copy of the printout of LAs issued to the Commissioner and the Assistant Commissioner (Assessment)." D. RESUMPTION OF ISSUANCE OF LAs FOR 1987 AND PRIOR YEARS is amended to read as follows: "Letters of Authority may now be issued by the various audit units to investigate internal revenue tax liabilities for calendar year 1987 or fiscal year ended as of June 30, 1987 and prior years, provided, the duplicate of the internal revenue tax return is attached to the Letter of Authority. No LA shall be approved without the duplicate tax return attached to it. However, the following are the exceptional cases where no duplicate returns may be required: a. The subject of the investigation has not filed a return or no return is on file at the Assessment Branch as the same cannot be located; b. Where the taxable period is being terminated at any time under Section 16 (d) of the NIRC, as amended. Nevertheless, the existence of such exceptional cases should be attested to by the Chief of the Assessment Branch. Whenever a duplicate copy of a return being requisitioned cannot be supplied because of any of the reasons stated above, the Chief of the Assessment Branch shall issue a certification to that effect so that an LA may be issued even without the duplicate copy of the return. A copy of the certification shall accompany the LA issued. "All office audit cases shall be treated as correspondence cases, therefore, no LAs shall be issued for such cases. "Audit and Investigation of tax liabilities for calendar year 1988 and all fiscal years beginning after July 1, 1987 (instead of 'beginning July 1, 1987' as stated in RMO 1-89) remains suspended until further order." REPEALING CLAUSE: The provisions of RMOs 19-84, 21-85 and other revenue memorandum orders which are inconsistent herewith are hereby revoked or amended accordingly. cd i EFFECTIVITY: This Revenue Memorandum Order shall take effect immediately. (SGD.) JOSE U. ONG BIR Commissioner