BIR Woes and Frustrations

BIR Woes and Frustrations

This is again the time of the year for filing income tax returns. Though I have not really filed anything since I am but an employee, and that before I have no direct conversation with our accounting department when it comes to BIR fillings, this year is a little bit different.

As the senior systems administrator for a medium sized business, I was involved with our accounting departments preparation for BIR's so-called On-line Filing of Income Tax Returns, among other things.  And since February, I believed that we are prepared for such on-line filing. However, it turned out that we are not really that prepared.

I made sure that all our systems are up-to-date, and that all firewall and policies has been reviewed to make sure that there will be no issues with connecting to BIR's servers.  But all this preparation were doomed to fail right from the start.  I must admit, BIR never gave any seminar about the things to expect about this new system.  And our accounting manager knows little about the said system, even when we called BIR for assistance.

Then we were told that their website, and on-line process is only compatible with Internet Explorer 9.  With that, I needed to downgrade the internet explorer version in two of our accounting departments computer from version 11 to version 9.  In the first place, who in their right mind would still want to use internet explorer 9?

Another program that BIR provided, the eBIR Forms Package v7 has been a little bit faulty. Again, I have tried this out with my computer, on a laptop, and even tried with a fresh installation of Windows 7 Service Pack 1.  And so far, it would normally crash the msha service 5 our of 6 times.  I haven't tried it on Windows XP Service Pack 3 since I do not have any installer for that version of Windows, nor did I have a chance to get my hands on the very first installer of Windows 7.

But then again, BIR should have tested this out fully before implementing such system. I am not really sure if we are the only ones experiencing an issue with their so called on-line filing, but my instincts tell me that others are also pulling their hairs out out of frustration.

DISCLAIMER:
I do not claim that I am an expert, nor do I claim that I know exactly what is going on. These are only my personal opinion, which are based on my personal experience.  I have not made a proper investigation on the matter, and nor do I have evidence to claim that BIR has not done anything to make this work. This is solely based on what I am experiencing and I am only ranting my distaste and disappointment with the current way BIR has implemented the new on-line system.

BIR Online ITR Filling - One of My Nightmares

It is official. I really hate BIR and their sloppy implementation of any software under their department.

For one, they have fully implemented the online filling of Income Tax Returns. This could have turned out to be a new service since it would be easier to file ITRs. However, the whole system just cannot seem to cope with the magnitude of users trying to submit their ITRs.

This could have been a good addition, if not for the following: 

Page Cannot be Displayed when submitting a form 

• Looks like their servers are under heavy stress, and is not able to cope up with the number of requests 
• Internet connection for BIR might also be congested and at full capacity 

Poor integration with current Windows OS

• I might not be an expert, but for the love of technology, why is BIR's online system configured to only work with IE version 9? The company that I am working with right now is using version 11, and I had to downgrade the entire accounting department's internet explorer just so that each of them can access the BIR Online system. 
• Their Offline eBIR Form package is also without problems. Honestly, did they even bother to run tests first before rolling out any of their systems and programs? 

Poor technical support.

• If you are going to fully deploy these programs and software, or even the online form filling and submission, it would be of great help if you would be able to train all your staff on how to troubleshoot known-issues. Not all are tech-savvy, and are having a hard-time finding their own solution to issues that BIR does not even know how to resolve. 
• It might have also helped if they just hired a call center to cater for this online implementation. 

Has anyone else experienced problems with this online implementation? I would love to hear from you, and maybe we can help each other with troubleshooting these problems.


DISCLAIMER:

Again, I am not an expert. I am but an employee of a company that I work for as a Systems Administrator. I am only airing out/ranting my frustrations on trying to work out the problems with BIR in behalf of our accounting department.

Year 2015

I guess, I never really am able to be an active blogger.

The last post on this rant page of mine has been about 2 years ago.  Now, again, I am trying to start it up, and see if this picks up.

My main problem, what to write about.

I have thought of turning this blog into a real time diary of mine, but who would like to read another person's rants all the time?

I have thought about doing some niche that's popular right now, but my job right now as a Senior Systems Administrator is really taxing that I cannot find the time to do ample research, let alone right an article.

Let us see what happens.