30/11/2025
Do you want to pay the capital gains tax or donor’s tax, and documentary stamp tax on a land or house and lot that you bought or donated to you, but you don’t know what you need or how to do it? Read on and let us guide you through the process.
Disclaimer: The following steps have been shortened or summarized and are based on actual experience of our office. Other people may have different methods or processes. For the complete, official steps and documentary requirements, you may check the Citizen’s Charter of the respective offices (for example, https://www.bir.gov.ph/Transparency-Seal-BIR-Citizens-Charter ). Please note that under the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018, or Republic Act 11032, agencies are prohibited from requiring documents, fees, or procedures that are not included in their respective Citizen’s Charter.
PART 1 (SALE or DONATION)
These are the documents that we usually bring when we go to the BIR revenue district office to start the process of transferring title and tax declaration of a land or house and lot.
1. Deed of conveyance (deed of sale and acknowledgement receipt, deed of donation with acceptance and affidavit of first donation or only donation. The affidavit is for purposes of getting the PHP 250,000 exemption for donations), original and some photocopies
2. Certified true copy or photocopy of title (if registered land)
3. Tax Declaration of land and/or building (original or certified true copy and photocopy)
4. Tax Clearance (original or certified true copy and photocopy)
5. Certificate of no improvement or Certificate of improvement (original or certified true copy and photocopy)
6. TIN (if no TIN, birth certificate of seller/buyer for purposes of TIN application. Married women may need to present their marriage certificate)
7. Government-issued ID (photocopy)
8. Signature samples (three samples, usually on the same paper as the ID photocopies)
9. Special Power of Attorney, if the seller/buyer is not going to BIR personally (for example, if you hire a law office, agent, or ask a relative or other persons to do the processing for you) (original and photocopy)
The BIR examiner may require additional documents depending on the circumstances, but more often than not, these are the documents that we will need to get a tax assessment.
Once we complete the documentary requirements, we determine which BIR RDO to go to. We go to https://www.bir.gov.ph/zonal-values to check the RDO that has jurisdiction over the place where the land/property is located. The whole country is divided into 25 Revenue Regions. For example, Region VIII is under Revenue Region 14 – Tacloban City. When you open the link above and click on Revenue Region 14, it will show you all the Revenue District Offices within RR 14, with the towns and cities under each RDO. You can also see the latest zonal value of the lands under the RDO office when you open the Excel file posted on the site.
Now, we know which RDO office to go to. It’s time to do the hard labor. Depending on the queuing system employed by the RDO, we usually go to the RDO as early as 3AM if we want to be sure that we will be served. The night before going to the RDO, we double-check our documents. We don’t want to wake up early, wait in line for hours, only to be told that we need to come back another day because we lack some documents.
While waiting in line at the BIR RDO, we make sure we are on the ONETT or one-time transaction line. Official transactions start at 8AM. Once it’s our turn, we will submit our documents to the examiner, who will check if we have all the required documents. If we followed the checklist, and there are no problems with our documents (for example, area in the deed of sale does not match the area in the tax dec or title) the examiner will give us a tax assessment. This is known as the ONETT computation sheet. Once we receive the ONETT computation sheet, we can now pay at designated banks or online through bills payment or other payment platforms like Maya.
What’s next? After payment, we submit the proper tax returns through BIR’s e-filing system (Form 1706 for capital gains tax, 2000-OT for documentary stamp tax, and 1800 for donor’s tax). We then print copies of the tax return and attach the bank payment deposit slip or proof of payment or transaction receipt. Once we are ready with the tax returns, we can now return to the BIR RDO for payment verification and submission of requirements to eCAR section. Just to be sure that our payment can already be seen in the BIR system, we usually give it at least a couple of days after payment before returning to the BIR RDO for payment verification and submission to eCAR section. Note that for this task, we still want to get the first few slots in the queue, so we still have to go early in the morning. Once our documents are submitted to the eCAR section, we just have to wait for our schedule to pick up the eCAR. The date will be reflected in the claim slip that is given to us by the BIR. By the way, we prepare payment for certification fee and loose documentary stamps for the documents to be submitted to eCAR section. Waiting time for the eCAR is usually around one to two weeks from date of submission. Again, this is based on experience. Refer to Citizen’s Charter for official processing time.
What's next when we get our eCAR? Find out in Part 2.
