The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has released a memorandum with the subject: “Taxation of Any Income Received by Social Media Influencers,” on August 16, 2021.
BIR issued this memo in response to numerous reports that certain social media influencers have been failing to pay their income taxes despite earning “huge” amounts of money from various social media platforms.
Moreover, some influencers are not registered with the BIR or are registered under a different line of business and have been failing to declare their earnings, the memorandum added.
According to the BIR, social media influencers are individuals who earn money as bloggers or video bloggers (vloggers) on social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, and Snapchat.
They are also liable for income tax and percentage or the 12-percent value-added tax. Additionally, the BIR stated that social media influencers are taxed as self-employed individuals engaged in trade or business as sole proprietors.
BIR explained that self-employed individuals whose gross sales or gross receipts and other non-operating income don’t exceed the VAT threshold of PHP 3 million will have the option to avail of the eight (8) percent tax on gross sales or gross receipts, as well as other non-operating income over PHP 250,000.
Social media influencers who will violate this tax memo will be criminally liable and will be fined PHP 500,000 to PHP 10 million.
The 10-page memo identified potential revenue streams for influencers (mostly vloggers/YouTubers) and included sample computations of how much of their income is taxable.
Social media influencers are advised to declare their income voluntarily and truthfully, as well as pay their corresponding taxes without waiting for the BIR to conduct a formal investigation in order to avoid being liable for tax evasion and a civil penalty equal to fifty percent (50%) of the tax or deficiency tax.
As of this writing, the following are some famous personalities and media companies with more than ten million subscribers and followers.
ABS-CBN Entertainment – 35.7M subscribers
Raffy Tulfo in Action – 21.6M subscribers
GMA Public Affairs – 16.3M subscribers
Ranz Kyle – 14.4M subscribers
Niana Guerrero – 13.8M subscribers
Ivana Alawi – 13.7M subscribers
Ja Mill – 12.5M subscribers
Wish 107.5 – 11.6M subscribers
Alex Gonzaga Official – 11.3M subscribers
Zeinab Harake – 10.9M subscribers
Instagram:
Anne Curtis – 17.1M followers
Liza Soberano – 16M followers
Kathryn Bernardo – 15.4M followers
Pia Wurtzbach – 12.5M followers
Andrea Brillantes – 12.4M followers
Catriona Gray – 12.2M followers
Alex Gonzaga – 11.3M followers
Niana Guerrero – 26.1M followers
Andrea Brillantes – 13.2M followers
Sanya Lopez – 11.2M followers
Marian Rivera – 25.4M followers
Niana Guerrero – 23.7M followers
Angel Locsin – 23M followers
Anne Curtis – 18.2M followers
Manny Pacquiao – 17.6M followers
Anne Curtis – 14.1M followers
Vice Ganda – 14.1M followers
Kathryn Bernardo – 10.5M followers
You can read the full memorandum from the BIR here (https://ift.tt/3mdgab7).
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