Former PNP chief and senatorial candidate Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar vowed to give social media influencers fair and clear taxing guidelines which should promote the profession in the Philippines.

Last year, 250 popular social media influencers were probed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR)  for tax compliance. The taxing agency also advised the public to report tax evading influencers in exchange for a reward. All these, according to Eleazar, have sown nothing but fear.

“Ang ilalaban natin ay magkaroon ng patas at malinaw na panuntunan sa pagbabayad ng buwis ng mga social media influencers upang maiwasan natin ang kalituhan at pangamba,” said Eleazar. “Karamihan sa mga social media influencers ay mga kabataan na dahil sa kanilang angking galing ay nabigyan ng oportunidad na kumita para sa kanila at para sa kanilang pamilya. Sarili nilang kayod ito at talaga namang pinag-hirapan,” he added.

Above all else, he emphasized that aspiring social media influencers are now getting discouraged as they fear that they might face lawsuits, have their properties seized, or even suffer jail time. 

The reason thereof is BIR’s Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) No. 97-2021, it states that social media influencers shall be liable to Income Tax and Percentage Tax or Value-Added Tax (VAT) pursuant to the provisions of the National Internal Revenue Code (NIRC) of 1997, as amended, and other existing laws. Because according to the BIR, social media influencers 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 as business income.”