BIR E. Visayas to build five-storey data processing facility

PALO, Leyte, May 2 --The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) plans to construct a PHP70 million state-of the-art Document Processing Division (DPD) building in this town to store hard and electronic records of taxpayers in Eastern Visayas.

Within the quarter, the BIR will have a groundbreaking ceremony for the five-storey building that will rise behind the existing regional office at the government center here.

“We really need this since the government have been spending a lot to rent some space to secure and store taxpayers information,” BIR Eastern Visayas Regional Director Teodoro Galicia said on Tuesday.

The official emphasized the need to start the project soon since the fund, which was included in the 2016 General Appropriations Act, will expire by the end of December 2017. 

The BIR’s DPD in the region was launched early of 2016, sharing a space at the existing regional office. The launching marked the start of a centralized and more systematic processing of all tax returns filed by the taxpayers coming from the six revenue district offices (RDOs) in the region.

Another project on the pipeline this year is the PHP40 million Tacloban RDO building. It will rise within the 1,000-square meter property in the city’s Abucay village donated by the local government.

Tacloban office, which covers northern Leyte and Biliran areas, is the only BIR field office in the region without its own building, said Galicia. The district office is housed inside the regional office here.

“The first advantage of having our own district office building is security to taxpayers and employees, because if you rent a space in a commercial building, there are lots of people going in and out. You don’t know who the taxpayers are and it’s not really safe,” Galicia explained.

Construction is ongoing for district offices in Borongan City in Eastern Samar and Catarman in Northern Samar. The BIR main office has allotted PHP40 million for a new building for each field office.

In 2016, the BIR completed the office buildings in Maasin City, Southern Leyte; Ormoc City, Leyte; and Calbayog City, Samar.(Sarwell Q. Meniano/PNA)