By Joann Santiago
MANILA, Sept. 30 (PNA) — The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) targets to release by November or December this year the Broker Clearance Certificate (BCC) in line with the government’s bid to further arrest smuggling activities in the country.
BIR Deputy Commissioner Nestor Aspe, during a press conference after the government’s economic briefing at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) Tuesday, said they received about 20,000 BCC applications and have processed about 16,300 to date.
He explained that the processed applications are not necessarily approved as some have been denied due to failure of the applicants to submit all the necessary requirements.
“Lately we came to the decision whereby some of the requirements were a little bit relaxed so we shall be issuing some provisional clearance,” he added.
The Department of Finance (DOF) extended the application deadline for the accreditation to July 31, 2014 from June 30 to give more importers and brokers time to renew their accreditation.
The Bureau of Customs (BOC) requires all brokers and importers to be accredited with the BOC before they can be included in the agency’s client profile registration system (CPRS), which in turn would allow them to file import entries. (PNA)