LAWYERS ARE EXEMPT FROM PAYMENT OF BUSINESS PERMIT
Lawyering is a profession, not a business. Lawyers are public officers, not traders nor businessmen. Thus, lawyers are exempt from paying business permits. When I started my first law office around year 2019, I tend to follow all the processes in our municipality. Being the first lawyer in our municipality, the accounting and licensing department were not yet familiar on the required permits, tax payments and other law office-related licensing. Thus, they just followed the usual process for business establishments and required me to pay a mayor/business permit fee. As a new lawyer who was still not confident of facing the real world outside of my law school classroom, I just paid all the required fees in our municipality in order for me to subsequently process for my BIR application requiring me also to present my mayor’s permit despite the fact that I already paid my Professional Tax. However, during renewal of my mayor’s permit in January of 2020, I contest the business p