The revenue-collection target of P1.83 trillion for the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and P467.9 billion for the Bureau of Customs (BOC) this year should be achievable, given their solid performance in 2016 and at the start of the current year, according to the Department of Finance (DOF).
Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said sweeping reforms at the BIR and BOC are being implemented to improve taxpayer satisfaction, arrest official corruption and restore public trust in the government’s main revenue-generating agencies.
“The BIR and the BOC are working quite hard and we’re pretty sure that they will hit their targets for this year,” Dominguez said at a recent news conference.
According to him, the BOC was able to improve its collection to P398.41 billion in 2016, from P367.06 billion in 2015, or an expansion of 8.5 percent, or P31.35 billion. From January to February 19 this year, the BOC’s collection grew to 13.3 percent to P55.06 billion, compared to only P48.59 billion last year.
The BIR in 2016 collected P1.58 trillion, 9.31 percent, or P134 billion higher than the previous year’s P1.44 trillion. Its year-to-date collection also continued to improve at a rate of 12 percent, amounting to P202.44 billion for the same period this year, as opposed to only P180.71 billion in 2016.
As part of adjustments in tax administration, the BIR expanded its Large Taxpayers Service to cover the top 3,000 corporations, which account for 75 percent of total tax revenues. It also started simplifying forms and procedures for small taxpayers to encourage tax compliance and ease of payments, along with improving its electronic payment systems and enforcing risk-based audits to make the tax process more transparent and easier for taxpayers to comply with.
The BOC is, likewise, completing the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) under the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA) to further step up its anticorruption and antismuggling operations while improving the facilitation of trade. Electronic systems at the bureau are also being upgraded to pave the way for paperless transactions that will, in turn, reduce opportunities for corruption, according to Dominguez.
Aside from tax administration changes, the DOF needs to pursue tax policy reforms to help raise enough funds for the government’s ambitious public spending program designed to sustain high growth, Dominguez said.