THE amendments introduced by Republic Act (RA) 11534, or the 'Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (Create) Act,' and RA 10963, or the 'Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (Train) Law,' to our National Internal Revenue Code of 1997 (Tax Code), significantly changed the value-added tax (VAT) landscape in the Philippines.

While export sales continue to be subject to zero-percent VAT, consistent with the destination principle, sales of goods or services to export enterprises or enterprises operating within economic zones, which previously enjoyed VAT zero-rating, became subject to VAT pursuant to the Create Act. Thus, the recourse of exporters or registered enterprises, whose sales are zero-rated, is to seek a refund of input VAT attributable to its export or zero-rated sales.