Annual Report

When I first moved to the Philippines I was given an ACR (Alien Certificate of Registration) card which allows me to stay in the country indefinitely. Not everyone can get this card; I only received it because I'm married to a Filipino citizen. If you are curious about the process of getting the card I wrote about it several years ago in one of my first blogs (if you click on the title of this blog you will be redirected there). The card has my picture on it as well as fingerprints and other personal information all readable via a data chip. So it's pretty well documented in government files about who I am and how long I've lived here. It's all pretty high tech but it's amusing with all this technology how certain things get either forgotten or misplaced. A good example is this is something called the 'Annual Report'. The Annual Report involves me going down to the government immigration offices at the start of every year and paying a small fee to remain in the country. It's mandatory, as in, I have to do this. What's amusing is I was NEVER told I had to do this. On the day I picked up my ACR card no one sat me down and said, 'Kenn, you need to report to the immigration offices at the start of every year and pay a fee.' Also, the government has my mailing address, did they ever send me a letter reminding me to do this? No, they didn't. How did I finally find out about it? Through gossip, that's how. I heard a rumour that ACR card holders have to do this so I went down to the immigration offices to investigate. I discovered upon arriving there that the rumour was true: every year in January I need to report to the government immigration office and pay the fee so they can update my records. Every year. Every darn year. No skipping a year here or there, every bloody year. So now I know! Knowledge is power! But, as always, knowing something ends up opening more questions. First question: if this is so important why wasn't I told every time I tried to leave or enter the country that my ACR status needed to be updated? I've lived in this country for more than two years now, that's two years of never reporting to the immigration offices and paying the fee but no one ever told me it had to be done. Why is that? I think it's because every month I don't pay the fee I get FINED! We're talking two years of fines here. The Annual Report fee is only 300 pesos. That's a mere $7.64 CAD PER YEAR! The fine, on the other hand, is 200 pesos ($5.09 CAD) PER MONTH. So needless to say, after two years of not paying the fee it was a lot more than 300 pesos. At least I know now for next year! It's funny how cheap this Annual Report fee is considering the other fees I need to pay as an ACR holder are much more. Every time I leave the country I have to pay an exit fee/tax at the airport. I hate this fee. First of all I don't understand why I have to pay a fee just because I'm leaving the country. Secondly, and this is the part that really annoys me, since I have to go to the cashier to pay this fee, they slap on an additional 500 peso fee on my exit fee (which is 770 pesos) and call it an EXPRESS LANE FEE. What? Okay, I understand why they think that makes sense ... really I do. By going to the cashier I get to bypass the regular immigration lineup therefore it takes me less time to go through immigration. But here's where I need to slap them on their collective faces because YOU'RE FORCING ME TO DO THIS!! Why are you charging me an EXPRESS LANE FEE when there's NO OTHER LINE UP YOU'RE LETTING ME GO INTO??? Let's steal some more money out of the poor expat's pockets. I grind my teeth in annoyance every time I leave the country because these fees defy logic.

So, to summarize it's 300 peso per year to stay in the country and 1270 peso every time I leave the country. I leave the country at least twice per month so that exit fee really adds up.

I'm trying to stay positive about this. I'm trying to rework it into something pleasurable. The way I'm thinking about this now is the reason it's so cheap to stay here and so expensive to leave is it's obvious the Filipino people really really love me and want me to stay. Why else would they charge me so much to leave?

From now on, we shall call this the LOVING KENN TAX, or KENN IS AWESOME TAX. You can invent your own tax title if you wish...