Darn... tax?

Busy, no time, overtime... yep, I can always think of thousand reasons but the reality is, I am lazy when it comes to filing of income tax. It's been long overdue, I know, come to think my income statement arrived last February and yet, I haven't even had a form to file for my taxes. When was the last time I paid income taxes? Hmm.. I guess six years ago at Philcom and then no more - we don't have taxes in the Middle East, by the way.


The thought paying again shivers me. Yay! And I haven't subscribe to withholding tax, meaning I have to pay in full this year. Well as the old saying goes.. "two things are certain in this world - death and taxes", I might as well go to the Inland Revenue House and do what is necessary.


To my surprise, filing taxes in this country is not that hard. All I did was queue for about 5 minutes, present my Green Card to the reception officer and then after 2 minutes, the lady returned and presented me my new IRAS Pin. She gave a smile and instructed me to file my tax on-line using my IRAS pin to logon. There several available kiosk around and depending on one's literacy with computers, I bet, anyone can finish e-filing in less than 5 minutes - which I did. All in all, I completed the transaction in less than 20 minutes. Very efficient, don't you think?


I wonder when can we achieve this level of efficiency in the Philippines... just dreaming, though.