LTO Drivers License Renewal Five Year Validity: Fees, Rates, Card,

The new LTO Drivers License Fee for new applications and renewal with five year card validity from Land Transportation Office (LTO) Administrative Order 2016-034, released on September 13, 2016 Drivers License Fees: New License Application Fee: P100.00 Computer Fee: P 67.63 License Fee P585.00 Computer Fee P 67.63 Renewal License Fee P585.00 Computer Fee P 67.63 By the way, just in case plastic card is not available during renewal, the old license card will remain with the licensee and will be valid until the issuance of the new card

LTO E-Transact: Online CR, Car Registration Document Transaction

I lost my car's certificate of registration (CR) due to typhoon Ondoy and I badly needed a duplicate CR to replace it. I googled online and saw the LTO requirements for a lost CR replacement including new CR fees:

DUPLICATE CERTIFICATE OF REGISTRATION

1. Original Official Receipt of Current Payment
2. Photocopy of Certificate of Registration
3. Affidavit of lost Certificate of Registration, indicating CR serial number lost in affidavit
4. Motor Vehicle Inspection Report (Stencil)
5. At least two (2) valid identification cards from Registered owner photocopy to be submitted at LTO after presentation of Original ID’s.
6. TIN of registered owner
7. File application ONLY at LTO where the Certificate of Registration was issued
8. Fees:
1. 30.00 duplicate CR fee
2. 30.00 law enforcement clearance fee
3. 134.40 computer fee
4. 10.00 legal research fund

Note that my car's registered in Makati so I need to drop by again at LTO Makati on Pililla St to get a new CR. But i wanted something online much like online ordering system of NSO to get birth certificates.

the answer I found on https://go.lto.net.ph that offers these online services:

1. Motor Vehicle Certification
2. LETAS Certification
3. LTO Records Verification


Such a nice concept again for the Land Transportation Office (LTO) but only if they can make it work as advertised.

It's because for days now I've been trying to register but the only reply I get is a screenful of JBOSS error messages (givng users the idea of what they're using) Stradcom needs to learn many things on web application security and I won't really be surprised if LTO website gets hacked into.

Heck, the SSL certificate also doesn't match the domain name that's why you'll also encounter a cerficate error when you first visit the website.

LTO and Stradcom, wake up!

GSIS/SSS Calamity Loans Applications

I remember my college life when i usually asked by my mother, a public school teacher, to go to GSIS to apply/follow-up on her loan applications whether salary loan, policy loan, or whatever loan she can get her hands on just to tide us over

GSIS then was at the old GSIS building in front of SM City Manila behind Manila City Hall then it transferred to the new GSIS building at the reclamation area in Pasay City.

those were the days. Back then I knew by heart where to file, and whom to ask even the requirements for loan processing. Now i don't remember the details, i only remember it recently the GSIS vs IBM database issue that's painful not for both of them but for the millions of GSIS pensioners and loan applicants trapped in the middle of the "war"

Typhoon Ondoy again brought back surge for GSIS calamity loans. No idea about SSS calamity loans for i've yet to apply for one.

Wrong TIN Inquiry from BIR

What would you do if you discovered one day that you're paying your taxes and yet the TIN (tax identification number) you're using is incorrect? Past income tax forms 1902, 1905 and 2316 were already lost.

A friend of mine found this out the hard way. His company has been remitting income tax returns for years and when he got married, he needed to update his TIN from single to married in order to avail of the increase in personal exemptions and thus lower taxes. Problem is that the online TIN inquiry of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) is not working and calling individual BIR offices, called RDO, is a pain in the ass when most government employees are a pain in the ass to talk to when it comes to inquiries from "lowly" citizens of the Philippines that they're supposed to serve.

It's a good thing that an officemate of mine had a good day and called one of the four RDOs in Makati by giving the invalid TIN and the full name of my officemate and chanced upon a rare good mood of the BIR employee. It's great the RDO she called up was the one where my officemate registered more than ten years ago...

Case solved!

to BIR: why on earth can't you detect income tax returns with invalid TIN? SSS can detect remitances with SSS number and name mismatch. No wonder you can't run after tax cheats. Your former commissioner also had that stupid and backward policy of shifting back BIR corporate payments from online to over the counter, undoing the hard work of Parayno. Think twice!

Check LTO Vehicle Registration via SMS

Here's a (quite) new and easy way to check registration of your car registration status at the Land Transportation Office (LTO) using just one text message:

to check with LTO, send a message like this : LTOspaceVEHICLEspaceABC123
to 2600

e.g. LTO VEHICLE ABC123

ABC123 is your vehicle's PLATE NUMBER
send to 2600 (all network i.e. Smart, Talk N Text, Globe, Sun Cellular)

a sample auto-generated response for my car reads:

"Plate no: XXX888/Make:toyota/Model:vios 1.5g a/t/Year:2006/Color;subtle gold/Registered last 07/21/2006, has no LTO apprehension, has no LTO alarm. P2/text"

This is a great innovation that saves time for car owners instead of going to the LTO office in Quezon City. I can use this later to check status once I register again my car whose license will expire in a few months.

Note this is also a great tool for traffic police (Traffic Management Group) to randomly check vehicles and catch carnapped vehicles and/or red-flagged ones if they're really serious with it.

BIR eFPS Online Tax Payments System

There's an odd proposal from the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to encourage corporate taxpayers to return to paying taxes over the counter and away from the fast, online payment using Electronic Filing and Payment System (eFPS) by offering longer float periods for Authorized Agent Banks (AAB) from 4 days to 10 days for over the counter while for online payments was shortened to two days.

The partner banks didn't like the idea naturally, recommended allegedly by Ateneo de Manila University-led Economic Policy Reform and Advocacy (EPRA). Such move will slash partner bank's earnings with the float greatly misunderstood by the recommenders of the move. It's a known fact that over the counter transactions are costly to banks and thus encourage shifting to electronic channels via ATMs and Internet.

Should it ever push through, banks may give up being AABs due to the back-to the-middle-ages proposal. The only ones who'll benefit from the project are BIR personnel who may have lost face-to-face contacts with taxpayers who can offer something "under the table."

the eFiling and Payment System are already pushed for the top 10000 corporations in the Philippines where the bulk of the money is from. Imagine the long lines the shift to the old, full of bureaucratic red tape process will show.

Tothe BIR people, better think of more ways to enhance tax collection and not a return to jurassic mode of paying taxes.