MISSA creates Tax Audit team
posted 10/31/05
The declining level of voluntary tax compliance and the increasing number of employers whose quarterly returns seemed doubtful (e.g. gross wages are understated or certain employees are not reported) prompted the Administration to assign full-time Tax Auditors whose primary function is to examine the payroll records of employers.
Tax audits have already been performed in the past but as tax compliance officers were tasked with other functions (e.g. data entry of quarterly returns, updating of employer filing status in the computer system, monitoring of tax delinquency and payments, legal referrals, etc.), only a handful of tax audits were completed. This year, about fifty (50) employers are scheduled to be audited and MISSA expects that a significant amount of tax deficiencies by these employers will be discovered by its tax auditors.
Another purpose of the tax audit is to identify errors in employee information as reflected in the quarterly returns submitted by employers. Most of the common mistakes noted are erroneous names and SS numbers. One may think that these errors are not significant to the employees concerned. But if the list of employees whose earned quarters could not be posted (credited to their names) is closely scrutinized, it will be noted that hundreds, if not thousands of them, may lose one or more earned quarters.
The new audit team is planning to meet with the auditors from the Revenue and Taxation Office and discuss how employer information and audit findings generated by the two audit groups can be shared. Both teams can also come-up with common audit procedures and strategies.
The New Tax Audit team is composed of Brad Lamille, Elvie John, Mathilda Lanwi and is headed by Ave Gimao, Jr., MISSA' s Chief of Operations and Audit.