RMC No. 111-2026: New BIR-Accredited PERA UITF — Manulife Semiconductor Fund

Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) No. 111-2026 adds one new fund — the Manulife Global Semiconductor Opportunities Equity Fund PERA Feeder Fund — to the BIR’s running list of BSP-accredited PERA Unit Investment Trust Funds (UITFs). The practical effect is narrower than it sounds: only income earned from PERA assets parked in a fund that’s actually on this accredited list is exempt from income tax, so a contributor who puts PERA money into an unaccredited fund gets no such exemption on that portion, even though the account itself is a valid PERA account.

This is a different question from the 5% tax credit on PERA contributions covered in PERA Tax Incentives: How the 5% BIR Tax Credit Works Under RA 9505 — that post addresses the contribution side of PERA. This post addresses the investment-income side: once money is inside a PERA account, whether the earnings that money generates are tax-exempt depends on which specific fund or product it’s invested in, and RMC No. 111-2026 is the BIR’s latest update to that accredited list.

What RMC No. 111-2026 actually circularizes #

RMC No. 111-2026, issued by the BIR in late September 2026, publishes one additional PERA UITF that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) formally accredited in a letter dated September 11, 2026. The circular doesn’t create a new tax rule — it performs the administrative step of adding a newly BSP-approved fund to the BIR’s public record of accredited PERA investment products, so that fund’s income qualifies for the PERA income-tax exemption going forward.

The newly accredited fund, per the circular, carries these details:

RMC No. 111-2026 states that it “supplements the list of accredited PERA investment products contained in Revenue Memorandum Circular Nos. 131-2016, 30-2017, 25-2021, 3-2026, and 74-2026” — meaning the BIR maintains this as a cumulative, growing list across multiple circulars rather than a single consolidated document, and a contributor checking whether their fund qualifies needs to check the fund against all of these circulars, not just the newest one.

The rule RMC No. 111-2026 restates: accreditation, not just “being PERA,” drives the exemption #

The core tax principle behind this circular — and the reason the BIR bothers publishing each newly accredited fund individually — is that the PERA income-tax exemption attaches to the specific accredited investment product, not to the PERA account as a general concept. A contributor can open a fully valid, BIR-registered PERA account and still earn taxable investment income if they direct that account’s money into a fund the regulator never accredited for PERA purposes.

RMC No. 111-2026 states this directly:

“It is emphasized that only income generated from the investments and reinvestments of PERA assets in the PERA investment products duly approved/accredited by the concerned Regulatory Authority shall be exempt from income taxes under Rule 11 of the Rules and Regulations Implementing Republic Act No. 9505, otherwise known as the ‘Personal Equity and Retirement Account (PERA) Act of 2008’, and Section 9 of Revenue Regulations No. 17-2011. Moreover, income from investments and reinvestments of PERA assets in government securities is likewise exempt from income taxes under the said provisions.”

Two things follow from that paragraph. First, the “concerned Regulatory Authority” varies by product type — the BSP accredits UITFs like this Manulife feeder fund, while the Insurance Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accredit PERA products that fall under their respective jurisdictions (pre-need/insurance-based products and PERA-qualified mutual or trust funds, respectively). Second, government securities get a blanket carve-out: income from PERA assets invested in government securities is exempt regardless of any separate fund-level accreditation, because the exemption there flows from the nature of the security itself, not from a BSP/IC/SEC approval list.

Worked example: the same ₱200,000 contribution, two different funds #

A PERA contributor who splits their annual contribution between an accredited fund and an unaccredited fund will see the tax-exempt treatment apply only to the accredited portion’s earnings — the contribution-side 5% tax credit, by contrast, applies the same way to the full qualified contribution regardless of which fund it goes into. Consider a hypothetical overseas Filipino worker (OFW) contributor, eligible for the doubled ₱200,000 annual PERA contribution cap:

In this illustration, both contributors put the same ₱200,000 into a PERA account and both earn the same hypothetical ₱10,000 in investment income in the same year. The contributor in Scenario A keeps the full ₱10,000 tax-free because the Manulife fund is now on the BIR’s accredited list as of RMC No. 111-2026. The contributor in Scenario B owes income tax on their ₱10,000, because — regardless of how similar the two funds look on paper, or how legitimate the second trust entity is as a business — only an actually accredited product carries the PERA exemption. The lesson for a contributor choosing where to direct PERA money isn’t about one fund being better than another; it’s that the tax exemption is conditional on a specific regulatory accreditation that a contributor should verify before assuming any PERA-labeled investment automatically earns tax-free income.

A contributor can confirm a fund’s accredited status by checking it against the cumulative list in RMC Nos. 131-2016, 30-2017, 25-2021, 3-2026, 74-2026, and now 111-2026, or by asking their PERA Administrator to confirm the specific product’s accreditation before investing.

How this fits with the rest of PERA compliance #

RMC No. 111-2026 only updates which investment products carry the tax exemption — it doesn’t touch the contribution tax credit or the certificate-processing rules covered elsewhere. The 5% tax credit on qualified PERA contributions, capped at ₱100,000 a year (₱200,000 for overseas Filipinos), works independently of which fund the contribution is later invested in — see PERA Tax Incentives: How the 5% BIR Tax Credit Works Under RA 9505 for how that credit is computed and claimed. Separately, how the resulting Pera Tax Credit Certificate is filed and validated through the BSP’s PeraSys system and the BIR’s ePERA System is covered in How to Claim Your PERA Tax Credit Certificate Under the New PeraSys/ePERA Process (RMC No. 94-2026). Together, the three issuances address three distinct questions: what you get for contributing (RMC-independent, under RA 9505 itself), how that credit certificate gets processed (RMC No. 94-2026), and which specific investment products your contributed money can sit in tax-free (RMC No. 111-2026 and its predecessor list).

Frequently asked questions #

What does RMC No. 111-2026 actually do? #

Revenue Memorandum Circular No. 111-2026 circularizes — publishes — one additional Personal Equity and Retirement Account (PERA) Unit Investment Trust Fund (UITF) that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) formally accredited as a qualified PERA investment product. The fund is the Manulife Global Semiconductor Opportunities Equity Fund PERA Feeder Fund, managed by Manulife Investment Management and Trust Corporation. The circular supplements the running list of BIR/BSP-accredited PERA investment products first published in RMC Nos. 131-2016, 30-2017, 25-2021, 3-2026, and 74-2026.

Is all PERA investment income tax-exempt, or only income from specific funds? #

Only income from PERA investment products that the appropriate regulatory authority — the BSP for UITFs, the Insurance Commission for pre-need or insurance-based PERA products, or the SEC for PERA mutual/unit investment trust equivalents — has formally approved or accredited is exempt from income tax. This exemption runs under Rule 11 of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 9505 and Section 9 of Revenue Regulations No. 17-2011. A PERA contributor who invests in a fund that was never accredited for PERA purposes does not get this income-tax exemption on that fund’s earnings, even though the account itself is a PERA account.

Is the Manulife Global Semiconductor Opportunities Equity Fund PERA Feeder Fund a good investment? #

This article does not make an investment recommendation. RMC No. 111-2026 only confirms the fund’s tax-accredited status for PERA purposes and its stated profile — an equity feeder fund denominated in Philippine pesos with an Aggressive investor risk rating, managed by Manulife Investment Management and Trust Corporation. Whether a specific fund fits a contributor’s goals and risk tolerance is a separate question from its tax treatment, and should be assessed with a licensed financial or investment adviser.

Does income from government securities held through PERA also get this exemption? #

Yes. RMC No. 111-2026 reiterates that income from the investment and reinvestment of PERA assets in government securities is likewise exempt from income tax under the same Rule 11 of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 9505 and Section 9 of Revenue Regulations No. 17-2011 — independent of whether a specific UITF or fund product has been separately accredited.

Does RMC No. 111-2026 change the 5% PERA tax credit or the contribution caps? #

No. RMC No. 111-2026 deals only with which specific investment products qualify PERA investment income for the income-tax exemption. It does not change the 5% tax credit on qualified PERA contributions, the ₱100,000 annual contribution cap (₱200,000 for overseas Filipinos) under Republic Act No. 9505, or the certificate-processing rules under RMC No. 94-2026.

Summary #

RMC No. 111-2026 is a narrow but useful update: it adds the Manulife Global Semiconductor Opportunities Equity Fund PERA Feeder Fund — an aggressive-risk, peso-denominated equity feeder fund managed by Manulife Investment Management and Trust Corporation — to the BIR’s cumulative list of BSP-accredited PERA investment products, following the BSP’s accreditation letter dated September 11, 2026. The circular’s real value to a PERA contributor is the reminder underneath it: the PERA income-tax exemption under Rule 11 of RA 9505’s Implementing Rules and Regulations and Section 9 of RR No. 17-2011 attaches to the specific accredited product, not to the PERA account in general, so a contributor should check any fund — new or existing — against the accumulated list in RMC Nos. 131-2016, 30-2017, 25-2021, 3-2026, 74-2026, and 111-2026 before assuming its earnings are automatically tax-free. Government securities held through PERA remain exempt regardless of this list.