Published February 4, 2021, 5:00 AM Officials of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Federal Tax Service (FTS) of Russia have met recently to discuss the latter’s best practices that could be applied in the Philippines to further improve its tax administration and compliance. On orders of Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III, BIR officials met last January 13 with FTS Deputy Commissioner Dmitry Volvach via Zoom to also explore a possible bilateral cooperation agreement between the revenue agencies of the two countries. (MANILA BULLETIN) Dominguez earlier requested then-outgoing Russian Ambassador Igor Khovaev in February last year for assistance in helping the BIR set up a tax data capture program for its value-added tax (VAT) collection effort that is similar to Russia’s highly efficient system.