BIR Form 1604-C and 1604-E Penalty for Late Filing: A Worked Example

A late BIR Form 1604-C or 1604-E annual alphalist doesn’t draw a percentage-of-tax surcharge the way an income tax return with unpaid tax does — it draws a fixed NIRC Section 250 information-return penalty (₱1,000 per failure, capped at ₱25,000/year) plus an RMO No. 7-2015 compromise penalty keyed to the filer’s gross sales or receipts. For a small business with a few million pesos in annual sales filing a few weeks late, that combination typically lands in the ₱1,000–₱11,000 range, not thousands of pesos per day.

This post computes the actual peso exposure for a late alphalist. For what each form covers and its deadline, see BIR Annual Alphalist (1604-C, 1604-E, 1604-F): What It Is and When It’s Due; for data-entry mistakes rather than timing, see Common 1604-C Alphalist of Employees Errors and Common 1604-E Alphalist of Payees Errors; for fixing an already-filed alphalist, see How to Amend an Already-Filed BIR Annual Alphalist.

Why doesn’t the standard 25% surcharge apply here? #

BIR Form 1604-C and BIR Form 1604-E are annual information returns that consolidate withholding tax already withheld and remitted earlier in the year through the monthly (BIR Form 1601-C, 0619-E) and quarterly (BIR Form 1601-EQ) returns — the alphalist itself carries no separate “tax due” figure for a percentage surcharge to be computed against. NIRC Section 248’s 25% surcharge and Section 249’s deficiency/delinquency interest are designed to apply to unpaid or late-paid tax. Since the tax reported through the annual alphalist was, in the ordinary case, already paid on time through those earlier returns, a late alphalist is instead penalized as a failure to file a required information return under NIRC Section 250 — a fixed administrative penalty, not a percentage-based one.

BIR Annual Alphalist (1604-C, 1604-E, 1604-F): What It Is and When It’s Due already establishes this on the site: a late or missing annual alphalist “is treated as a failure to file a required information return under Section 250 of the NIRC, carrying a ₱1,000 penalty per failure, capped at an aggregate of ₱25,000 per calendar year, in addition to any applicable compromise penalty under RMO No. 7-2015.”

What does RMO No. 7-2015 add on top of the Section 250 penalty? #

RMO No. 7-2015’s Annex A schedule adds a second, separate charge — a compromise penalty offered in lieu of criminal prosecution for the underlying Section 255 filing violation, sized to the filer’s gross sales or receipts for the year, since a late alphalist carries no unpaid-tax figure of its own to key the other Annex A table to.

“RMO No. 7-2015, issued January 22, 2015, is the BIR’s revised consolidated schedule of suggested compromise amounts for non-fraudulent criminal violations of the National Internal Revenue Code — offers in lieu of prosecution, not automatic civil surcharges.” (per RMO No. 7-2015 Compromise Penalties Explained, citing the order itself)

The relevant table — return filed late with no tax due, keyed to gross sales/receipts:

This is a suggested settlement amount, not an automatic civil addition — RMO No. 7-2015 frames it as an offer the taxpayer may accept to close the criminal-referral exposure for the late filing, separate from and in addition to the Section 250 penalty above.

Does the RR No. 6-2024 micro/small discount help? #

Only partially. RR No. 6-2024, implementing Section 45 of the Ease of Paying Taxes Act (RA No. 11976), cuts the Section 250 information-return penalty in half for micro and small taxpayers — from ₱1,000 to ₱500 per failure, with the annual cap dropping from ₱25,000 to ₱12,500. It does not, however, extend its 50% compromise discount to the Section 255 filing/payment table used above; that discount is limited to non-fraudulent criminal violations of NIRC Sections 113, 237, and 238 (VAT invoicing, and receipt/invoice issuance and printing). A late alphalist’s RMO No. 7-2015 compromise is therefore charged at the full Annex A rate even for a micro or small taxpayer — only the Section 250 side of the bill is discounted.

Worked example: a ₱2,500,000-gross-sales business, 45 days late #

A concrete computation shows both charges applied together for a small business filing its BIR Form 1604-C forty-five days past the January 31 deadline. Assume a self-employed retailer with ₱2,500,000 in gross sales for the year — below the ₱3,000,000 threshold, so it qualifies as a micro taxpayer under RR No. 8-2024 — files its 1604-C alphalist 45 days late, with no other filing violations for the year.

1. NIRC Section 250 penalty (information-return failure), micro-taxpayer rate under RR No. 6-2024: ₱500 for the one late filing (well under the ₱12,500 annual cap).
2. RMO No. 7-2015 compromise, “return filed late, no tax due” table, at ₱2,500,000 gross sales — falling in the ₱500,001–₱5,000,000 bracket: ₱10,000. RR No. 6-2024’s 50% discount does not apply to this table, so the full amount stands regardless of the taxpayer’s micro/small status.
3. Total exposure: ₱500 + ₱10,000 = ₱10,500.

For comparison, if the alphalist instead carried an actual unpaid tax figure — say the retailer had also failed to remit ₱35,000 in withheld compensation tax through the underlying monthly returns for the same period — that unpaid amount, not the alphalist itself, would separately draw the ordinary Section 248 surcharge (10% for a micro taxpayer under RR No. 6-2024, versus 25% for other taxpayers) and Section 249 interest (6% per annum for a micro taxpayer, versus 12%) on the ₱35,000, computed from the original due date to the date of payment. That surcharge-and-interest exposure attaches to the unpaid withholding tax return, not to a late alphalist that has no unpaid tax of its own — the two computations run on separate tracks and should not be added together as if the alphalist itself owed 10% or 25% of anything.

For BIR Form 1604-E filed late instead of 1604-C, the same two-part computation applies — a Section 250 information-return penalty plus the matching RMO No. 7-2015 “late filing, no tax due” bracket for the filer’s gross sales, since 1604-E likewise consolidates expanded withholding tax already remitted earlier in the year through BIR Form 1601-EQ.

Frequently asked questions #

What is the penalty for filing BIR Form 1604-C or 1604-E late? #

A late annual alphalist (1604-C or 1604-E) is treated as a failure to file a required information return under NIRC Section 250, carrying a ₱1,000 penalty per failure, capped at ₱25,000 per calendar year, plus an applicable compromise penalty under RMO No. 7-2015’s Annex A schedule keyed to the filer’s gross sales or receipts.

Does the 25% surcharge under Section 248 apply to a late alphalist? #

Not the way it applies to a return with tax due. The 1604-C and 1604-E alphalists report withholding already remitted through earlier monthly and quarterly returns, so there is no separate “tax due” figure on the alphalist itself for a percentage surcharge to attach to. The exposure instead comes from the fixed Section 250 penalty and the RMO No. 7-2015 compromise, both flat-amount charges rather than a percentage of tax.

How is the RMO No. 7-2015 compromise amount determined for a late alphalist? #

RMO No. 7-2015’s Annex A prices a return filed late with no tax due on a table keyed to gross sales/receipts, from ₱1,000 (₱50,000 and below) up to ₱25,000 (over ₱25,000,000). The bracket that matches the filer’s gross sales or receipts for the year sets the compromise amount.

Do micro and small taxpayers get a discount on this penalty? #

The NIRC Section 250 information-return penalty is reduced from ₱1,000 to ₱500 per failure (capped at ₱12,500/year) for micro and small taxpayers under RR No. 6-2024. The RMO No. 7-2015 compromise table for late filing is not covered by that same 50% discount, since RR No. 6-2024’s compromise reduction applies only to non-fraudulent violations of NIRC Sections 113, 237, and 238, not to the Section 255 filing/payment compromise schedule.

Is the compromise penalty mandatory once assessed? #

No. RMO No. 7-2015 treats the compromise as a suggested amount the taxpayer may agree to pay in lieu of criminal prosecution for the underlying filing violation. If the taxpayer declines, the BIR may instead refer the violation for criminal action rather than force collection of the schedule amount as if it were a civil surcharge.

Summary #

A late BIR Form 1604-C or 1604-E alphalist is priced as a fixed administrative failure, not a percentage of tax: a NIRC Section 250 information-return penalty (₱500 for a micro/small taxpayer under RR No. 6-2024, ₱1,000 otherwise, per failure) plus the matching RMO No. 7-2015 “late filing, no tax due” compromise bracket for the filer’s gross sales. For the ₱2,500,000-gross-sales example above, that’s ₱10,500 total — meaningfully different from what a percentage-of-tax surcharge calculation would suggest, and a reminder that the Section 248/249 surcharge-and-interest track only bites when there’s an actual unpaid tax amount to compute it against. Filing the Alphalist of Employees or Alphalist of EWT correctly and on time the first time avoids running this computation at all.