CITING the drop in rice import volume amid the pandemic, the Bureau of Customs (BOC) is now eyeing to collect just P14 billion in rice tariffs in 2020—44 percent lower than what it initially hoped for early this year.
Customs Assistant Commissioner and spokesman Vincent Philip C. Maronilla told the BusinessMirror they would have been close to hitting the P25-billion mark in rice tariff collection this year if not for the decline in the rice import volume as rice-exporting countries decided to control the volume of exports amid local supply concerns.
Despite this, Maronilla still expressed confidence they could exceed the P12.3 billion in rice tariffs that they collected last year.
“We expect better volume in the succeeding months, so if our projections in volume hold true, we expect to exceed last year’s revenue performance,” he said.
Pressed on their projection on rice tariff collection this year, he said: “Hard to give specific figures at this time, but hopefully we reach P14 billion.”
As of July 17, BOC said it was able to collect a total of P10.728 billion in rice tariffs despite the rice import volume falling 24.6 percent year-on-year to 1,651.267 metric tons.
The rice tariff collected by BOC for the period is 8 percent higher than the P9.936 billion it collected for the same period in 2019.
BOC attributed the increase in rice tariff collection to its continuous effort to ensure correct valuation of goods and protect government revenue. It added it consistently conducts close monitoring of the declared value on rice importations in view of its strict adherence to global published prices for rice, which serves as a guide when the veracity of the declared values is under dispute.
Under the rice tariffication law, Filipino rice farmers are guaranteed with a P10- billion Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) annually until 2024 regardless of whether or not rice tariff collections hit P10 billion.
However, any revenue collections in excess of P10 billion would still be earmarked for other interventions aimed at boosting rice farmers’ yield and improving their global competitiveness.
To recall, the Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordination Committee further slashed in May the collection targets of BOC and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to P520.4 billion and P1.744 trillion, respectively.
The new combined collection target this year of the BIR and the BOC—the main collection agencies of the government—is now P2.26 trillion, a 31.66-percent reduction from the original revenue goal set at P3.307 trillion.
The downward revision was done on the back of government’s expectations—as the pandemic gouged almost all sectors—of an economic contraction by 2 percent to 3.4 percent and lower imports, as well as a drop in tax base.
BIR’s collection target for the year is down by 32.3 percent to P1.744 trillion from the initial goal of P2.576 trillion.
On the other hand, BOC’s revised collection target is a 28.8 percent drop from its initial goal of P731 billion.
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