• CHERYL G. CRUZ
The Bureau of Internal Revenue has exempted from issuing receipts the suppliers, producers, sellers, contract growers, and millers of agricultural food products, whose annual gross sales/receipts, for tax purposes, do not exceed P1 million.
BIR Commissioner Romeo Lumagui Jr., in Revenue Regulation (RR) No. 12-2023 dated Oct. 2, and made public Oct. 10, said this is for ease of doing business. “The Commissioner hereby exempts agricultural producers from the issuance of principal and supplementary receipts or invoices on their sale of agricultural food products, provided, that the gross sales/receipts for the year shall not exceed P1 million”.
Agricultural producers shall record each sale transaction in a simplified sales book containing the date of transaction, description of goods sold or services rendered, registered name, registered address, and Taxpayer Identification Number of the purchaser if engaged in business, amount of sales, amount of tax withheld, if any, and the net amount received, RR 12 states.
“Small farmers do not need to issue receipts. The BIR will do its part in making the lives of our farmers easier,” Lumagui said in a statement, adding the Bureau will only require receipts if their annual gross sales/receipts exceed P1 million.
Agricultural food products refer to products in their original state which are generally used for yielding or producing food for human consumption, such as farm produce, livestock, poultry, marine product, ordinary salt, and agricultural inputs, the BIR said.
These farm produce shall include, but not limited to corn, coconut, copra, palay, cassava, coffee, polished and/or husked rice com grits, locally-produced raw cane sugar, fruits, vegetables, and other spontaneous products of the soil which are destined for human consumption produced through planting, cultivating, harvesting, and other similar processes.
These agricultural food products shall still be covered by the RR even if they have undergone the simple processes of preparation or preservation for market, such as freezing, drying, salting, broiling, roasting, smoking, or stripping, including those using advanced technological means of packaging, such as shrink wrapping in plastics, vacuum packing, tetra-pack, and other similar packaging methods.
Agricultural inputs, meanwhile, include fertilizer, seed, seedlings; fingerlings, fish, prawn, livestock, and poultry feeds, except specialty feeds, the new regulation, which will take effect 15 days after publication, states. | CGC
