Fees increase effective Friday
TACLOBAN CITY- Even securing civil registry documents have been hit by the TRAIN Law.
Effective last Friday (February 2), fees on the issuances and authentications of birth, marriage and death certificates as well as certificate of no marriage (Cenomar) from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) will go up due to the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law which took effect on January 1 of this year.
Nikki Joy Belas, information officer of PSA-8, based here, said that an increase of P15 will be imposed for those who will secure of these civil registry documents from their office effective this Friday.
From the previous P140, those who will secure birth, marriage and death certificates, they now have to pay P155 per copy while for the issuance of Cenomar, one has to pay P210 from the current rate of P195.
“The increase of the new rate effective February 2 is based on the implementation rules and regulations of BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) Revenue Regulations No.4-2018 for documentary stamp tax rate adjustment due to the TRAIN Law,” Belas said, citing the reason for the increase of the fees.
The implementation of the TRAIN Law resulted in the amendments of several sections of the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997 which mostly refers on documentary stamp tax or taxes impose on documents or instruments, among others.
Last year, the PSA in Eastern Visayas released 414,890 civil registry documents.
Belas, however, was not able to provide how much their office collected out of the release of these documents of the same period.
“But we have informed the public on the increase of the fees through media releases and in our website. We also announced this new rate adjustment through our public address system for those who are in our office,” she added.
Notices of rate increase were also placed inside their office, Belas said.
Among those who secure these documents are beneficiaries of the 4Ps (Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program), a cash grant program of the government aim to provide relief among the country’s poorest of the poor.
“I think the P15 increase is still within their reach. And it’s not only our office that will impose rate adjustments because of the implementation of this TRAIN Law,” Belas said.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)
