‘Sin’ taxes seen to boost BIR collection to P1.25T
The Bureau of Internal Revenue aims to collect P102.4 billion in excise taxes this year and boost total revenue collection for the year to P1.25 trillion.
BIR data show that the 2013 excise tax goal is 43.8 percent higher than the P71.2 billion targeted in 2012.
The share of excise tax in the total collection goal rises to 8.2 percent this year from 6.6 percent last year.
Income taxes still accounted for the bulk of the BIR’s revenue goal at P759.2 billion, or about 61 percent of total.
The value-added tax collection goal for this year of P268.6 billion is about 21 percent of the total target of the BIR.
Finance officials have regained footing on their revenue outlook for the coming years with the passage in December of the sin tax reform law.
Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima said last month the new law, which increased the excise tax rates on tobacco products and alcoholic beverages, was expected to raise some P34 billion in additional revenue during the first year of its implementation. Even then, the difference between this year’s and last year’s excise tax goal is only P31 billion.
The targeted additional collection from “sin” taxes is less than both the P60 billion that Malacanang had wanted to generate and the P40 billion that state economic managers said was the minimum amount that would enable excise tax reforms to achieve their goals.
Purisima had said that over the succeeding four years of implementation, the law would turn in P184.31 billion in additional collection from so-called sin products.
This year’s overall collection target of the BIR is 17.6 percent higher than the P1.066 trillion set for 2012.
Also last month, the BIR said it had breached the record P1-trillion collection for any given year on Dec. 17.
Earlier in December, the agency reported a yield of P969.34 billion for the first 11 months of the year.
“Considering projections of collections from other sources that were unaccounted for as of (Dec. 17), the BIR could have hit the P1-trillion mark much earlier,” the BIR said in a statement.
