Quick Read
- The PR kit tax comes from RMC 97-2021, issued August 16, 2021, which already requires influencers to declare free products received in exchange for promotion as income at fair market value.
- No new BIR circular on PR kits has been reported, so the live questions concern documentation and not tax rates.
- Published summaries of the circular do not say how it treats a kit sent without a request to post or handed out as a thank-you.
- RMC 99-2026 extended the deadline for creators to display a BIR registration badge with a scannable QR code to October 31.
- Whether a company that pays in goods must withhold tax was raised in published commentary, and no BIR answer has been reported.
The PR kit tax is not new. Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) 97-2021, issued on August 16, 2021, already requires influencers to declare the fair market value of free products received in exchange for promotion as income, and no new BIR circular on PR kits has been reported in 2026. What changed this year is how easily anyone can check whether a creator is registered, and that puts the sender’s paperwork under a brighter light.
Founders sit on the sending side of this rule. A skincare brand that mails kits to a list of creators before a holiday campaign decides, kit by kit, whether it is giving a gift or paying for promotion. The recipient’s tax follows from that decision, and the brand is the party that knows what it expected.
The PR Kit Tax Rule Is Five Years Old
The circular treats payments for services as business income no matter what form the payment takes. Cash is not the test. A gadget, a hotel stay or a skincare set counts if it was the price of the post, and the BIR said so plainly when it released the circular. One explainer from mid-October gave the example of a beauty influencer who receives ₱20,000 worth of skincare products for promotional videos and generally has to declare that value as business income.
Coverage of the rule mostly describes the income tax on the recipient. A tax built on an exchange has two sides, and the sender’s side gets far less attention.
The Sender Holds the Fact That Decides the Tax
The circular’s wording ties the income to a promotional exchange. A kit sent with no request to post, or handed out as a thank-you after an event, sits in a middle ground. The same mid-October explainer said an unsolicited gift is not automatically taxable and that the nature of the arrangement matters. Published summaries of the circular do not say how it treats such a kit, and no BIR ruling on the question has been reported.
Some facts would plausibly bear on whether a kit was an exchange. Was the person invited because of their audience? Did the brand expect or hint at a post? Does it track or repost what creators publish? Does it keep sending kits to the same names? None of these is a BIR test. They are the kind of facts that separate a gesture from a payment, and the brand knows the answer to each.
Scale makes the gap concrete. A brand that mails 100 kits valued at ₱2,500 each has put ₱250,000 of goods into creators’ hands in one campaign. If part of that was payment for posts, that part is income to the creators and a question about the brand’s own records. A creator can only report what arrived. The brand knows what it wanted, which is why the PR kit tax question lands hardest on the sender even though the sender does not file the return.
The Registration Badge Makes Creators Easy to Check
RMC 38-2026, issued on April 29, 2026, replaced the posting of a full certificate of registration with a BIR Registration Seal Badge for online businesses, content creators among them. RMC 99-2026, issued on September 24, extended the display deadline to October 31. Those who fail to comply after that date may face penalties.
The badge carries a QR code that anyone can scan to verify a registration. The BIR describes this as a way for consumers to check sellers. The same scan is open to a brand deciding where to ship its next batch of kits.
The badge is not a PR kit tax audit tool, and nothing published says the BIR uses it that way. A brand that ships to creators it has not checked skips a verification that is now one scan away.
Brands Carry the Open Withholding Question
A tax column published after the circular came out asked how a company that pays in goods is supposed to apply withholding rules, and whether those payments fall under expanded withholding at all. The column also noted that a company partnering with a non-compliant influencer can be questioned by the BIR on whether it withheld correctly. No BIR answer to the first question has been reported.
So a brand that treats kits as payments and a brand that treats them as gifts are both taking a tax position, and neither has clear footing. The PR kit tax reaches brands through paperwork before it reaches them through rates.
Law firm guidance to creators lists contracts, campaign briefs, delivery receipts and invoices as the records to keep. Brands with those papers can defend either position. The brands least able to defend anything are the ones that ship on goodwill, with no contract, no recorded value and no note of why a given creator was on the list. PR agencies that run seeding for several clients can carry the same gap across every account.
Where a kit was an exchange, the creator who opened the box carries the income tax. The brand that shipped it is the only party that can say why it was sent. Where that answer was never written down, the sender has nothing to show but the label, and the label does not decide the tax.
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