26/08/2026
The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has recently issued Revenue Memorandum Order (RMO) No. 22-2026 prescribing the Consolidated Revised Policies, Guidelines and Procedures for the BIR Audit Program.
Highlights of the Revised BIR Audit Program are as follows:
• Single-Instance Audit: A taxpayer will now only face one (1) electronic Letter of Authority (eLA) for a given taxable year, covering all applicable internal revenue tax types.
• Anonymized and Risk-Based Selection: Case selection is now system-assisted and driven by data. To ensure fairness, audit cases are assigned through an anonymized process where the taxpayer's identity is concealed during the assignment stage.
• Targeted Audits: Audits are strictly categorized into Mandatory Cases (e.g., tax refund claims, One-Time Transactions, tax clearance requests) and Priority Cases (e.g., taxpayers showing a drastic decrease in sales or reporting substantial net losses).
• Capped Workloads: To ensure efficiency, a Revenue Officer (RO) is limited to handling a maximum of 30 pending priority cases at a given time. Strict Timelines: Investigation reports must generally be submitted within 180 days for Regional cases and 240 days for Large Taxpayers Service (LTS) cases from the date of the eLA.
• Taxpayer Venue Options: Taxpayers can now coordinate the venue for the examination of their records, opting to either submit documents to the BIR office or have the audit conducted at their principal place of business.
• "Audit of Auditors": To uphold quality and accountability, audit reports and assessments may be subjected to a "revalida" or technical review by the BIR.
Source: BIR website
