THE Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has reported revenue collections of P172.21 billion for the month of May, pushing total collections of the bureau to P827.910 billion for the January-to- May period.
The robust intake continued the positive streak earlier noted among government collection agencies, which the finance department traced mainly to the effective implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law. This is crucial to the Department of Finance (DOF), as it enables the government to sustain an aggressive spending policy to support an ambitious infrastructure program without breaching the programmed budget deficit.
Based on data from the DOF, the BIR has thus far collected P827.910 billion as of end-May this year, 3.10 percent higher than its target for the period of P803 billion.
The collection for the period is also higher by 14.7 percent compared to the recorded revenue collection of P721.402 billion for the same period in 2017.
The BIR’s collection for May of P172.21 billion is 3.27 percent higher than its target for the month of P166.746 billion. This also represented growth of 8.52 percent from the actual collection in May 2017 amounting to P158.680 billion.
Broken down, revenue collections from BIR operations for the five-month period amounted to P810.461 billion, while collections from non-BIR operations accounted for P17.499 billion.
The collections from BIR operations posted an increase of 3.76 percent compared to its target for the period of P781.084 billion, while revenue collections from non-BIR operations came up short by 17.4 percent from its target of P21.196 billion.
BIR operations include collections from its Large Taxpayers Service (LTS), as well as the bureau’s Revenue Region (RR) offices. For the period, the LTS collected revenues of P543.550 billion, with the RRs collecting P266.911 billion.
The collections from the LTS showed an increase of 12.7 percent compared to the goal for the period of P482.261 billion; that of the RRs contracted was 10.6 percent short of the goal of P298.822 billion from January to May this year.
Last month Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the impressive increases in revenue collections shown by the government’s collection agencies, as a result of the effective implementation of TRAIN, enabled the government to sustain its aggressive spending policy within limits of the programmed budget deficit.
The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) earlier reported that the national government registered a P105.9-billion deficit for the period of January to April this year, on the back of strong revenue collections despite the surge in government spending. Actual government spending for the period reached P1.033 trillion.