BIR, Supreme Court push fully digital notarization

By Francis Allan L. Angelo

The Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Supreme Court are working to align the government’s Electronic Documentary Stamp Tax system with electronic notarization facilities, a move aimed at keeping taxable notarized documents digital from execution through tax compliance and verification.

The proposed integration could remove a remaining paper-based requirement that adds handling, time, and compliance steps to notarized-document transactions. For individuals and businesses, an end-to-end digital process could make transactions easier to complete and verify while supporting broader government efforts to reduce administrative friction.

BIR Commissioner Charlito Martin R. Mendoza and Supreme Court Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin S. Caguioa are spearheading discussions on aligning the BIR’s eDST system with the judiciary’s electronic notarization, or eNotarization, facilities.

During an Aug. 11, 2026, meeting, Mendoza and Caguioa led representatives of the BIR and Supreme Court in discussing how Documentary Stamp Tax, or DST, could be paid and constructively affixed electronically so electronically notarized documents would no longer need to return to paper for tax compliance.

Mendoza said the talks seek to resolve the paper-based DST affixture requirement that the BIR and Supreme Court identified during discussions on Feb. 27, 2026, as the remaining nondigital step in an otherwise electronic notarization process.

“If a document can be executed, signed, notarized, and verified electronically, it should not have to go back to paper just to comply with the Documentary Stamp Tax. That is why we are working with the Supreme Court to remove this remaining paper-based step and make the entire process seamless and more verifiable,” Commissioner Mendoza said.

The initiative builds on the Supreme Court’s Rules on Electronic Notarization, which were approved on Feb. 4, 2025, under A.M. No. 24-10-14-SC.

The rules allow electronic documents to be notarized through accredited electronic notarization facilities and provide for in-person electronic notarization, remote electronic notarization, or a combination of both.

The Supreme Court has said electronically notarized documents executed in accordance with the rules have the same validity, force, and effect as notarial acts performed under the traditional 2004 Rules on Notarial Practice.

The electronic notarization framework applies to electronic documents in Portable Document Format, or PDF, and Portable Document Format Archival, or PDF/A, while paper documents with handwritten signatures, notarial wills, and depositions remain governed by the traditional rules.

On the tax side, the BIR issued Revenue Regulations No. 28-2025 on Dec. 22, 2025, implementing an enhanced version of the eDST system.

The regulations require covered taxpayers, including notaries public, to use the enhanced eDST system for the prescribed documentary stamps on taxable documents. Other covered groups include banks and other specified financial institutions, shipping and airline companies, pre-need firms, educational institutions for certain taxable certificates, and specified government entities.

The regulations also provide that loose documentary stamps and constructive affixture may be allowed as exceptions to mandatory eDST use, subject to conditions set by the BIR commissioner through a separate revenue issuance.

Aligning the two systems would therefore address the gap between the judiciary’s ability to notarize qualifying documents electronically and the tax administration requirements that can still force part of the transaction back into a paper-based process.

Mendoza said the initiative advances the Digital and Data Transformation and Service Excellence and Stakeholder Engagement pillars of BIR DARES, the agency’s five-point reform agenda.

BIR DARES covers Digital and Data Transformation; Audit Reform and Accountability; Revenue Collection and Base Protection; Employee Empowerment and Welfare Promotion; and Service Excellence and Stakeholder Engagement.

The BIR said modernizing notarization, which is used in many business and private transactions, also supports the government’s broader Ease of Doing Business agenda by seeking to reduce unnecessary procedural steps while improving the traceability and verification of documents.

“We are redesigning processes so government systems work together and transactions become simpler, faster, and easier to verify. This cooperation with the Supreme Court shows how inter-agency coordination can produce practical and lasting reforms that make it easier and safer for people and businesses to transact,” he added.