File Your BIR Form 1604C (A Complete eBIRForms Guide)

Using BIR Form 1604C, you must annualize the monthly withholding of your employees’ compensation by the end of the year.

This means that your work is not yet finished even though you have filed BIR Form 1601C for December of the taxable year.

In this guide, I’ll talk about:

What is BIR Form 1604C?
Whoe needs to file BIR Form 1604C?
How to File BIR Form 1604C using eBIRForms.
Other related topics about this form.

You can use the table of contents to directly jump to your chosen section in this article.

Let’s dive into the discussion.

BIR Form 1604C Overview

Before the actual filing procedures, I’ll walk you through some of the important points about the BIR Form 1604C.

What is BIR Form 1604C?

The full name of BIR Form 1604C is Annual Information Return of Income Taxes Withheld on Compensation. Take note of the phrase “Information Return“. This simply means that it is not a Remittance Return like BIR Form 1601C.

The purpose of BIR Form 1604C is very simple. You need to report to the BIR the summary of income taxes you deducted or withheld from your employees throughout the taxable year.

In other words, this information return does not require payment afterward.

Many are still confused by this form. They thought they would still remit money to the BIR if you file it.

I hope this article will clear your confusion about BIR Form 1604C.

Who Needs to File BIR Form 1604C?

A withholding agent with a tax type BIR Form 1604C on their Certificate of Registration.

In short, if you file BIR Form 1601C monthly, you need to file BIR Form 1604C at the end of the taxable year.

You can read this article to know more about what is a withholding agent.

If your business is a corporation regardless of whether it is a one-person corporation (OPC) or regular corporation (INC or CORP), the name that should be included on the return is the name of the corporation and not the name of the file, representative, or shareholders.

Hint: Always use the TAXPAYER’S NAME indicated in the Certificate of Registration.

BIR Form 1604C Deadlines

A withholding agent must file its BIR Form 1604C on or before January 31 of the year following the calendar year in which the compensation payment and other income payments were paid or accrued.

You don’t have to think about whether it’s a calendar year or fiscal year, because these terms are irrelevant when filing BIR Form 1604C. Whether it’s the calendar or fiscal year you’re using, the BIR Form 1604C must be filed on or before January 31 following the calendar year.

How to File BIR Form 1604C using eBIRForms?

Before you file BIR Form 1604C, you will need to do the things you need to do to make your filing easier. Here are the ones you need.

Requirements

1. BIR Form 1601C

We’ll use this to fill up the Part II – Summary of Remittances per BIR Form No. 1601-C of BIR Form 1604C.

2. Official Receipt

These are the proofs or receipts of remittances of income taxes withheld on compensation.

If you notice, I only use GCash and PayMaya to pay the total amount due for every filing. My main reason is to facilitate payment without having to leave your home.

Therefore, I’ll only use these two as a reference in this tutorial.

But if you use different payment methods, this guide is still applicable as long as you know the transaction reference number.

Of course, we will use eBIRForms to file BIR Form 1604C. If you have not yet downloaded and installed eBIRForms, please read this article. You’ll also learn how to set up your company file in the eBIRForms in this guide.

Procedures

For filing the income taxes withheld on compensation, you need to download and install eBIRForms on your laptop or personal computer.

Maybe you want to ask me if you are required to file tax returns using eBIRForms. For complete answers, you may read the articles below.

But to make the conversation easier, yes, you are probably required.

Now let’s dive into the actual filing.

Step 1: Open eBIRForms

You can open your eBIRForms using the desktop shortcut present (of course) on the desktop.) You can also open eBIRForms by locating it in the start menu and clicking eBIRForms.

Recommended Reading: How to Create eBIRForms Desktop Shortcut

Step 2: Input Your 9-digit TIN and 3-digit Branch Code

Click the first box under the TIN field and start typing your TIN. Press the TAB on your keyboard to jump to another box. After you’ve successfully inputted your TIN and branch code, the company file you’ve set up will populate the field required.

Under the List of BIR Forms >> select the BIR Form 1604C – Annual Information Return of Income Taxes Withheld on Compensation

Do not select other versions of the 1604C. These are older versions and are no longer used and accepted by the BIR. This is important so you don’t get in trouble later on.

Step 4: Click Fill Up

After selecting the form, click the fill-up button beside the dropdown list.

A popup will show. Click OK to close it.

Wait for the application to load the BIR Form 1604C. It may take some time to load it. Sometimes, it will hang but don’t close the eBIRForms and wait for it.

Step 5: Fill Up the BIR Form 1604C

Using eBIRForms, you can easily fill up the BIR Form 1604C because some fields are already preloaded with your background information. Filling up this form is going to be easy as it has only one page and it requires no computations. Follow the guidance below for your reference.

Example: Let’s say I’m filing for the year 2021.

1. Choose the Year

In this example, I’m going to put 2021. This will cover the remittances made from January 2021 to December 2021.

2. Select No

Since this is the first time I’m filing for BIR Form 1604C, I’m going to choose No. But if you’re filing for an amended return, select Yes.

3. Input the Number of Sheet Attached

You put here the number of sheets attached. Maybe you’re confused as to what these sheets are. Well, you attach here the Alphabetical List of Employees or what we call Alphalist of Employees.

Sometimes filers or taxpayers ignore this item number because they say that it is not very important. But I recommend being as accurate as possible in filling up any tax return.

Filing your tax returns accurately can help you avoid issues in the future.

4 – 7 eBIRForms Will Auto-Supply this Information Base on the Company File

Recommended Reading: How to Setup Your Company in eBIRForms?

8 – 8A

If you are not a government corporation or agency, select Private. You don’t even have to think about it. I also presumed that you (the one reading this article) are a private organization.

Choose NO in item number 8A because you are not a top withholding agent like me. Because if you are a top withholding agent, you will not use eBIRForms but eFPS.

9 – 10 eBIRForms Will Auto-Supply this Information Base on the Company File

11 – 13 Overremittance Adjustments

In this part, you will enter over remittances or overpayments if any. Hopefully, you don’t have such adjustments because the filling-up process will be a bit different because of this.

In our example, We’ll assume that you have no adjustments so let’s not just fill up these item fields.

Fill up the Part 2

There are 9 columns in this part. The columns Months and Total Amount Remitted are not editable.

DATE OF REMITTANCE (MM/DD/YYYY)

Many are still confused as to what date to put here. And hopefully, this article will help eliminate your confusion about this part.

If you don’t have remittance for the month (for example January), you do not need to enter a Date of Remittance. This is because, in actuality, you have not remitted or paid any money to the BIR.

Some filers say to put the date of filing or the date of email confirmation from the BIR. For example, if you filed February 5, 2021, for the applicable month of January 2021, and you received the email confirmation from BIR on the same date, this is what you will enter according to them.

But I don’t recommend doing this because the eBIRForms explicitly state the phrase “Date of Remittance” and not the date of an email confirmation or date of filing.

Another reason is that if you put a date on this column, you also need to put a drawee bank or the method of payment you use in remitting the taxes withheld.

Of course, you also need to put a reference number and amount. It is illogical if you put a reference number without an amount. Even more illogical is the amount you enter is zero.

Take note that if you have a value in the date of remittance column, there must also be a value in the drawee bank column, reference number column, and amount column. Those are the requisites. Otherwise, the eBIRForms will invalidate your input yielding an error like this.

Why did I say these things? This is my explanation. If you put in the date of remittance column the date of filing or date of email confirmation from BIR and enter a random drawee bank, reference number, and you’ll enter zero in the amount column, the BIR will now look for it in their database. Of course, the BIR wouldn’t find anything because there was no transaction under that random reference number that transpired.

So if you do not have a remittance for the month, it is safe to leave it blank.

DRAWEE BANK/ BANK CODE/ AGENCY

If you use GCash, put the word “GCASH” or “PAYMAYA” if you use PayMaya. Put it without quotes. If you use another payment method, enter an appropriate name. For example, if you use Union Bank of the Philippines, you can enter “UNION BANK”. If you use Banco De Oro, you can enter “BDO”. You don’t need to put the full name.

TRA/eROR/eAR NUMBER

Put here the transaction or the reference number. I said earlier that I will only use GCash and PayMaya as examples in this guide. Sample receipts of GCash and PayMaya can be found below.

In this case, the reference number is 4886 6136 4 and the date of remittance is January 3, 2022.

For the reference number, you can enter it without spaces (488661364) or replace the spaces with hyphens (4886-6136-4). Either of these forms will suffice so choose what you want. I prefer the second one.

In this case, the reference number is 200216607397 and the date of remittance is January 3, 2022.

TAXES WITHHELD

Here you will enter the amount you withheld based on the BIR Form 1601C.

ADJUSTMENT

Here you will put the adjustments or the over remittances and overpayments if any.

PENALTIES

You can get the amounts you’ll put here from the BIR Form 1601C.

Step 6: Validate the BIR Form 1604C

Once the information you must enter in PART 2 is complete, you can validate BIR Form 1604C.

After you supplied all the necessary information, click the validate button. The eBIRForms will now validate if there is missing information.

If there is no error, the popup will appear saying validation successful. Click OK to close the popup.

Make sure that your BIR Form 1604C is properly filled up. Double-check the data and make sure they are correct and accurate to avoid issues in the future.

Validating the BIR Form 1604C does NOT mean all the data you inputted is correct and does match with the BIR database. It only means that the fields have values. But eBIRForms will not check whether those values are correct or not.

For example, you can input a fictional address, TIN, or even put a wrong date. With all of these, it will still say validation successful. But in reality, these are all wrong. So a final reminder is that you check the information you supplied and correct them if they are wrong. You can click the edit button to modify the form.

Step 7: Submit the the BIR Form 1604C

Before you submit the BIR Form 1604C, make sure you have a stable internet connection. Also, make sure that you have entered an active and valid email address. BIR will send you a notification to your email once they received your eBIRForms submission.

Now that you’re sure of the information you supplied. It’s time to click the Submit / Final Copy button to submit online.

A popup will appear. Click ok to proceed with the submission. On the next page, you need to agree to the terms and conditions of the eBIRForms. Click ok to continue.

Wait for the process to complete. You’ll receive a popup message saying Submission Successful just like below.

If you have received an error message while filing BIR Form 1604C in the eBIRForms, you’ll need to repeat the submission process. Make sure you have a stable internet connection for the transaction to push through.

Usually, you’ll receive the email confirmation from the BIR after a couple of minutes or hours. This is usually the case but I don’t know with the others. It will still depend on the situation.

This email confirmation will serve as proof that the BIR has received your online submission of BIR Form 1604C.

References

Bureau of Internal Revenue. (n.d.-d). RMC No. 73–2019. Retrieved January 11, 2022, from https://www.bir.gov.ph/images/bir_files/internal_communications_2/RMCs/RMC%20Full%20Text%202019/RMC%20No%2073-2019.pdf

File Your BIR Form 1604C (A Complete eBIRForms Guide)

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