THE revenue take by the government’s main collection agencies from January to September this year is still down by 12.13 percent to P1.82 trillion from P2.073 trillion a year ago, as the pandemic-induced lockdown forced the economy into a standstill.
This, despite both Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Bureau of Customs (BOC) exceeding their combined collection target of P1.683 trillion for the nine-month period this year by 8.26 percent.
According to the preliminary data shared by Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III with finance reporters on Monday, BIR and BOC still fell short of their revenue collection last year.
In a span of nine months this year, BIR collected P1.424 trillion, an 11.16-percent drop from P1.603 trillion in the same period in 2019. However, BIR breached its P1.31-trillion revised target for the period by 8.67 percent.
On the other hand, BOC’s tax haul for January to September slid by 15.43 percent to P397.51 billion this year from last year’s P470.05 billion, although this is up by 6.81 percent versus its P372.16-billion revised target.
For the month of September alone, BIR and BOC collected a total of P168.86 billion, plunging by 19.31 percent year-on-year from last year’s P209.28 billion. Nonetheless, both agencies breached by 8.72 percent their combined adjusted target for the same month at P155.31 billion.
Compared to its revenue take of P150.48 billion in September last year, BIR suffered a double-digit decline of 21.16 percent, only managing to collect P118.63 billion in the same month this year. Still, the bureau managed to slightly surpass its P117.59-billion adjusted target by 0.88 percent.
For its part, BOC’s tax haul slipped by 14.57 percent to P50.23 billion in September this year from P58.80 billion in 2019.
Meanwhile, the bureau exceeded its revised P37.72-billion target for the month by 33.17 percent.
In a separate statement, BOC attributed its positive revenue collection performance to the intensified collective effort of all ports, gradual improvement of importation volume and the government’s effort in ensuring unhampered movement of goods domestically and internationally, considering the pandemic situation. The bureau has also maintained its border security measures against undervaluation, misdeclaration and other forms of technical smuggling in a bid to efficiently collect revenues.
By year-end, the government expects to collect a total of P2.52 trillion, 19.75 percent down from P3.14 trillion in 2019.
Even if revenues are down this year, the government is still expecting disbursements to rise by 14.14 percent to P4.335 trillion from P3.798 trillion in 2019 due to the implementation of stimulus measures to keep the ailing economy afloat in the middle of the health crisis.
Given the revenue hit, the government has also ramped up its borrowing program from P1.4 trillion to P3 trillion this year to cover the expected doubling of budget deficit, as well as to fund its spending requirements for Covid-19 response.
The budget deficit is seen to rise to 9.6 percent of GDP or P1.815 trillion from only 3.4 percent of GDP or P660.2 billion last year.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes