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THE
Philippine government will likely push its revenue and
customs agencies to exceed collection targets to meet
the budget deficit programmed for the year.
Budget
Undersecretary Laura Pascua said they would push the
Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Bureau of Customs (BOC)
to raise P18 billion more than their target for the
year. The additional revenue is seen to come from the
value-added tax on oil and customs tariffs.
The
collection target this year is P1.236 trillion. With the
expected revenues from oil, Pascua said they are
increasing the figure by at least P18.7 billion to
P1.254 trillion, and will mainly come from customs and
internal revenue collections, the collecting agencies
that account for more than 90 percent of the national
revenues.
Earlier
figures set by the inter-agency Development Budget
Coordination Committee, or DBCC, show that the BIR
accounts for 76 percent of the total budget requirement
with this year’s target of P844.95 billion. The rest of
the money will come from the BOC with P254 billion, the
Bureau of Treasury with P57 billion and other offices
with P80 billion—P30 billion from proceeds of the
privatization effort.
“The
Department of Finance promises to meet its revenue
targets, which will basically be increasing by P18
billion,” Pascua said.
The
finance department, however, is thinking of selling more
assets, Pascua said. “Our goal is to keep [the deficit
narrow] as much as possible, so by 2010 we will still
meet the target of a balanced [budget].”
According to the new DBCC assumptions, the government
will increase spending by P90 billion more this year.
That will redound to a deficit of P75 billion, or about
1 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
By 2009,
on the other hand, national government will have a
budget deficit of P40 billion, or about 0.5 percent of
the GDP, and a balanced budget by 2010. |
