BIR misses collection goal for first 7 months

The BIR may have missed its tax-collection target in the first seven months but the total collection is higher by 14 percent from last year’s.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue missed its tax-collection target in the first seven months of the year, blaming the lower-than-expected volume of government securities traded in the market that led to a shortfall in taxes on the investment instruments.

However, the BIR noted that tax collections in the first seven months of the year marked a significant increase from that in the same period last year.

BIR Commissioner Kim Henares added that the full-year tax collection target of P940 could still be easily attained.

In a statement, the tax bureau reported that it collected P531.79 billion in taxes from individuals and corporate taxpayers from January to July this year. This was short by 0.58 percent of the collection target of P534.9 billion set for the first seven months. Nonetheless, this was higher by nearly 14 percent from only P467.28 billion in the same period last year.

“BIR performance continues to improve every month. This puts the target [for the full year] well within our reach,” Henares said in the statement.

The BIR is the biggest revenue earner among line agencies.

Henares said the BIR could have hit its target for the first seven months were it not for the lower volume of securities trading, a factor she said was beyond the tax bureau’s control.

“The BIR has exceeded its collection of taxes where it has administrative control, but has fallen short in the collection of taxes that the government remits to us,” Henares said.

Henares said that taxes remitted by the Bureau of the Treasury from its open-market operations in the first seven months of the year were short of expectation by P6.28 billion. On the other hand, she said collection of other taxes exceeded the targets by P2.3 billion.

“The surplus generated by the BIR from collecting taxes from income and sales taxes, which amounted to P2.3 billion during the period, was not enough to cover the shortfall (in taxes from government securities),” Henares said.

The BIR is tasked to help ensure the government keeps its budget deficit for this year at no more than P300 billion, which is lower than last year’s P314 billion.

The government is not expected to have difficulty keeping the deficit within ceiling because the budget gap in the first half was only P17.23 billion.

The lower-than-programmed deficit in the first half, which was way below the ceiling of P152 billion set for the six-month period, was attributed to underspending.