Short answer. Yes. Article 213 punishes frauds against the public treasury, and it specifically covers a tax collector who voluntarily fails to issue a receipt, as required by law, for money he officially collected. That omission is one of the enumerated acts, punishable by imprisonment or a fine, in amounts set by Republic Act No. 10951, or both.
What the law says
Failing voluntarily to issue a receipt, as provided by law, for any sum of money collected by him officially.
Revised Penal Code, Article 213 — Frauds Against Public Treasury. Read the full provision →
An article aimed at treasury frauds
Article 213 of the Revised Penal Code punishes frauds against the public treasury and similar offenses committed by public officers. It covers two broad situations: an officer who, in dealing with supplies, contracts, or the settlement of accounts involving public property or funds, schemes to defraud the Government; and an officer entrusted with collecting taxes, licenses, fees, and other imposts who commits certain abuses in that role. The provision guards the public's money at the points where an official's dishonesty could quietly siphon it away or undermine the honest collection of what is due.
The collector's prohibited omissions
For an officer entrusted with collection, the article lists specific wrongs. He may not demand payment of sums different from or larger than those the law authorises; he may not collect or receive things of a different nature than the law provides; and, crucially here, he may not commit the act of failing voluntarily to issue a receipt, as provided by law, for any sum of money collected by him officially. Not issuing a required receipt is treated as a criminal omission, because the receipt is the record that keeps the collection honest and traceable, and withholding it invites diversion of the funds.
Why failing to issue a receipt is criminal
A receipt is not a mere formality. It is the official acknowledgment that a sum was collected and must be accounted for, the paper trail linking the payer's money to the treasury. When a collector voluntarily fails to issue one, he creates a gap in that trail, making it possible for the collected money to disappear without any record that it was ever received. The law therefore treats the deliberate failure to issue a receipt as a fraud against the treasury in its own right, punishing the omission rather than waiting to prove that the money was actually stolen.
The penalty and special cases
The offense is punished by imprisonment or a fine, or both, with the peso amounts fixed by Republic Act No. 10951, which in 2017 revised the Code's monetary penalties. The article adds that when the offender is an officer or employee of the Bureau of Internal Revenue or the Bureau of Customs, the provisions of the Administrative Code are also applied. For a collecting officer, the practical rule is straightforward: always issue the receipt the law requires for every official collection, since voluntarily failing to do so is a punishable fraud against the treasury.