MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has ordered its staff to check the year-end inventory of corporate taxpayers within the week.

BIR Commissioner Joel Tan-Torres said he issued Revenue Memorandum Order No. 40-2009, which seeks to validate the correctness of inventory lists for taxable year 2009.

"We can expect our people to celebrate the New Year in warehouses to check inventories of taxpayers," he said on Monday.

"The best way to ensure that the inventories are properly reported by the taxpayers is for our revenue offices to be present during the conduct of the annual inventory taking," he added.

Under the order, he said the takeoff point of the inventory will be the financial statements and inventory lists for taxable year 2008 which were submitted to the revenue district office.

The revenue district office, in turn, will prepare a list of taxpayers whose peso value of ending inventory is at least 50% of its declared sales for the year. This does not include automobile dealers, excise taxpayers, drugstores, supermarkets, groceries, and other taxpayers who maintain fast-moving goods.

Last week, the BIR authorized its regional tax officials to move their personnel to new assignments as part of its efforts to enhance collection efficiency and to improve tax administration. (Read: Regional tax directors now authorized to move staff)

Previously, only the BIR central office could re-assign people to new posts. Personnel movements could be implemented only upon the approval of the BIR commissioner.

"Before, it [authority to move people] was centralized. We are now decentralizing this," Tan-Torres told reporters.

The delegated authority will take effect on January 1 next year. With a report from BusinessWorld