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THANKS to higher duties for crude and diesel and the
overall increase of imports, the Bureau of Customs (BOC)
expects collection in Batangas Port to exceed targets.
The
BOC’s Batangas Port office said that its collections may
reach P10 billion more than previously expected as a
result of measures to prod importers to pay their duties
for the shipments immediately rather than wait for the
30-day grace period to settle all their payables.
A BOC
district collector in Batangas also said that expected
surplus can also be attributed to the increase of duties
for crude and diesel oil from 2 percent to 3 percent.
Data
from the BOC showed that from January to October this
year, the Batangas Port—geared to become the country’s
alternative shipping hub to Manila—registered a surplus
of about P8.57 billion, pushing collections to P34.19
billion.
For
October alone, the government’s second-largest source of
revenue said it had collected P4 billion from Batangas
Port, or 30-percent higher than the target of P3.044
billion and 156-percent higher than last year’s
collection of P1.5 billion.
“The
bureau at the Port of Batangas would probably exceed its
collection target for 2006, when the revenue collections
and December are tallied at the end of the year,” BOC
said.
Earlier, the BOC has been encouraged by the Department
of Finance officials to meet targets after the Bureau of
Internal Revenue, where two thirds of the government
funds come from, missed targets for the past months.
To
achieve its P197-billion collection target for the year,
the BOC has extended its work hours at its main seaports
and airports, including the Batangas Port.
“The
flexible working hours [is] in line with the bureau’s
policy to provide optimum service to the transacting
public and further facilitate trade especially during
the Christmas season,” BOC said in its memorandum to the
employees released earlier this month. |
