“We have the profiles of over 250 personalities that we are investigating and we will ensure they pay the necessary corresponding tax on their earnings,” said Arnel Guballa, the bureau’s deputy commissioner.

The investigation will cover influencers who earn money from YouTube’s partner programme, sponsored posts, digital advertising, brand ambassadorship, and online sales.

A memo by the bureau said that influencers would also be taxed on “free” goods they received in exchange for promotions and that tax would be calculated according to the value of the products they had received.

Nowhere to hide

Predictably, perhaps, news of the investigation hasn’t been a hit with influencers.

Days after the bureau’s announcement, two of the country’s most popular YouTubers – the couple Jayzam Manabat and Camille Trinidad, known collectively as JaMill and famous for their videos of daily life and pranks against each other – deleted their channel.

There was widespread speculation among followers of the pair, who had more than 12 million subscribers and amassed some 1.3 billion views of their 567 videos at the time of the deletion, that they had acted in response to the bureau’s announcement.

However, the pair have refused to comment on the speculation and have claimed that their decision was to prioritise their relationship over social media, referring to a cheating scandal featuring Jayzam.

Whatever their motivation, the bureau has since made clear that influencers will not be able to evade back taxes simply by closing their social media accounts.

“Closed or open, there is always a way for us to determine how much you have earned even though you are already off the air … There is a payor. There is YouTube, there is data, there is a paper trail,” said Marissa Cabreros, another of the bureau’s deputy commissioners.

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The investigation has also ruffled the feathers of smaller-time influencers, for whom social media endorsements were more a side-project than full-time job.

“I have a corporate job aside from doing content creation, but from content creation alone I usually earn 10,000 pesos [US$200] a month but of course this isn’t a stable income and there are months where I have no paid collaborations,” said one emerging influencer with more than 100,000 followers on TikTok.

As a fashion content creator, she receives “X deals” [involving no money] to promote small clothing businesses on Instagram. In return, she gets affiliate commissions from referral or discount codes.

Another rising beauty influencer, with more than 13,000 followers on TikTok and 4,000 on Instagram also earns from affiliates. She said she felt Filipinos were already taxed heavily and it was frustrating as she could not see where the taxes were going.

She works as a small-time content creator for big e-commerce brands such as Shopee and beauty brands such as Maybelline, but says her income ranges from just 500 to 1,000 pesos per monthly paid partnership post. Sometimes, she receives only products in return.

“It’s weird that they are doing this in a time when the people are questioning where the government funds are going,” said the fashion influencer.

A distraction?

The investigation into the influencers comes at the same time as Manila is seeking to raise taxes on offshore gambling companies.

Under Senate bill 2232, which passed on the final reading and is pending presidential approval, any business seeking an offshore gaming licence would have to pay a 5 per cent gaming tax, while employers and service providers would be subject to a 25 per cent final withholding tax rate.

At present, the franchise taxes of Pogos are computed based on 5 per cent of their net income.

The bureau hopes that the bill will help it to collect an extra 60 billion pesos from the gaming companies, usually referred to as Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators or Pogos, over this year and next.

While the two moves are expected to boost government coffers, they were described as a step backwards by Sonny Africa, the executive director of the independent think tank IBON Foundation.

Africa said the plan was a “desperate move to increase revenue taxes” to offset tax cuts for “rich families” under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (Train) law and (Create) Act.

The Train law, which increased taxes on oil and basic commodities, has been criticised for further burdening the poorest 75 per cent of the population, while lowering taxes on upper-income families.

Africa said it made little sense to focus on social media stars while ignoring the country’s billionaires.

“Of course the 250 social media influencers can afford to pay higher taxes, but so too could the 250 richest Filipinos,” Africa said.

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In particular, Africa said, the government should pay more attention to the increasing wealth of real estate oligarchs, noting that in recent years there had been a huge increase in land value.

“Yet [despite this increase] there’s no mechanism for a windfall tax in the government. And this explains a lot of why the oligarchs’ wealth has increased astronomically,” said Africa, adding that the government’s reluctance to tax such businessmen was widely seen as linked to their political connections.

“So the point is, instead of looking at the 250 social media influencers and checking their digital trail, the government should be looking at the real estate barons benefiting from public infrastructure and increasing land values.

“There’s money to add if the government isn’t afraid to tax its political allies.”