After a successful visit and registration process with the BIR, the next step is to identify the kinds of taxes you’ll be paying and how to compute for them.

If you already have an accountant in mind who can take care of your taxes, that’s great. But if you’d still like to know where a percentage of your professional fees are going to, continue reading this post.

There are three major kinds of taxes that a Pinoy freelancer must file and pay: the annual registration fee, income tax, and business tax. To make things easy for you, let’s tackle each one at a time.

1. Annual Registration Fee

After registering at the BIR, you are required to pay an annual registration fee of P500. This is paid on the first or last day of the month of January. The RF is paid after payment of initial registration as a tax payer.

You’ll be using BIR form 605 for this. You can pay at your accredited agent bank under your RDO, through G-Cash, or through the BIR’s eFPS system. Again, I suggest paying directly at an AAB to avoid the risks of paying online.

2. Income Tax

Income tax is a percentage of our income paid to the BIR. Since we are registered as professionals, we can declare how much our taxable income is by computing for our gross income minus the allowable deductions.

According to the table on BIR form 1701 (Quarterly Income Tax Return for Self-employed Individuals, Estates, and Trusts), income tax for individuals is between 5% to 32%. Use the tax table on page 2 as your reference every time you compute for your taxable income.

A freelancer can apply two types of allowable deductions to their gross income:

• Optional Standard Deduction – the professional applies a maximum of 40% deduction to their gross income. Doing so will not require you to prepare an Account Information form/Financial Statement. I’m guessing that this type of allowable deduction is for professionals who don’t have the time, patience, and energy to itemize their expenses.
• Itemized Deduction – all ordinary and necessary expenses made for your business are accepted as itemized deductions. These expenses must be made during the taxable year and at a time when your business is operational.Some good examples are transportation fees, postage fees, rental expenses, etc. The catch here though is that you need to provide proof that you made these expenses in the form of receipts, vouchers, sales invoices, and bank statements.

You can hire a CPA to compute for your income taxes if you feel that this is too much for you to handle. Just remember that your taxable income is gross income less your allowable deductions.

3. Business Taxes

The third and final type of tax we freelancers are required to pay are business taxes. As explained by the BIR officer who handled my briefing, the difference between the business tax and the income tax is that the former is applied to every transaction made between you and your clients. The latter focuses only on your taxable income.

There are two types of business taxes:

• Value Added Tax – the infamous VAT is applied if your annual gross income is P1.5M and above per year. VAT is 12% of every transaction.
• Percentage/Non-VAT tax – this is used if the tax payer is non-VAT registered and if his gross income is not more than P1.5M per year. The percentage tax is a minimum of 3%.

The VAT or percentage tax is filed using BIR form 2550M and 2551M.

Important Reminders for You, the Professional

I’m no expert when it comes to computing for taxes and filing them to the BIR, but I did pick up a couple of good reminders that every freelancer should keep in mind.

1. You have to file for an income tax return EVEN when you didn’t earn income for that specific time period. If you don’t, the BIR will assume you are still operating and earning income and will investigate your case if they noticed the lapses.
2. If your clients are all dollar-paying customers, you are exempted from paying the 12% value added tax. It is only when you’re transacting with local/Philippine-based clients that you are required to pay VAT.
3. As soon as you receive your COR and TIN, start recording every single sale or expense made for your business. Save all of your receipts, vouchers, and invoices so that you have complete proof for your declared allowable deductions.
4. Don’t be tempted NOT to pay your taxes. You’ve gone this far and are now under the watchful eye of the BIR, so do your best to diligently pay your taxes OR file a return if you believe you didn’t earn income for the current tax period. If you have questions, contact the BIR or your CPA for clarification.

A Copy of the Professional’s Tax Guide

All this information I picked up from the BIR briefing and from this tax guide provided by the BIR. I encourage you to download this document right now:

Tax Guide for Professionals: A Quick and Easy Primer for Paying Your Taxes

This helpful guide covers most of the basic information regarding taxation for professionals. It also contains step-by-step instructions on how to compute for your income and business taxes, where to file for taxes, and when the due dates for each form is.

Use this as your reference whenever you feel lost or confused about your taxes. I also suggest consulting with a CPA to help you compute and file for taxes to ensure that you aren’t making the wrong computations and you are paying the right amount in taxes every year.

>> GUIDE #4: HOW TO COMPUTE FOR YOUR INCOME TAX RETURNS <<