MANILA, Philippines—The Bureau of Internal Revenue collected P1.058 trillion in 2012, missing its target by P8 billion.
Data from the bureau agency released on Tuesday showed that actual revenue jumped by 14.5 percent year on year—higher by P133.8 billion.
Of the total collections culled last year, tax revenue amounted to P1.017 trillion while non-tax take stood at P41 billion.
In December alone, the agency chalked up P88.6 billion, which was 16.4 percent higher than the target set for the month, and 18.8 percent higher year on year.
For 2013, the BIR is tasked to raise P1.24 trillion—16 percent higher than the P1.066-trillion goal of last year.
This year, income tax worth P759.2 billion will continue to account for the bulk of the BIR’s revenue goal. The amount is about 61 percent of the total, or about the same ratio as that of 2012.
Value-added tax worth P268.6 billion accounts for about 21 percent of the total goal.
However, the BIR expects excise tax collection to rise by 44 percent with the implementation of the new “sin tax” law that provides for higher rates on tobacco and alcoholic products.
With this development, the agency has penciled in a possible take of P102.4 billion in excise tax compared to the P71.2 billion targeted in 2012.
As a result, the share of excise tax in the bureau’s total collection goal rose to 8.2 percent this year from 6.6 percent last year.
Improving the excise tax collection is one of the BIR’s priority programs this year. It hopes to attain this goal by applying tax stamps on cigarette packages.
This initiative, dubbed Internal Revenue Stamps Integrated Systems (IRSIS), is part of a package of 26 priority programs that the agency has lined up for 2013.
Other programs on the revenue agency’s list of priorities include a drive against tax cheats through the Run After Tax Evaders and Oplan Kandado campaigns, the reengineering of BIR’s core business processes, the setting up of an electronic official registry book, and an electronic letter or authority monitoring system.
Also, the BIR is preparing an electronic certificate authorizing registration, web-based accounts receivable management system, web-based collection reconciliation system, online system for transfer tax transactions, and a geographic information system or spatial database.
Originally posted at 04:11 pm | Thursday, February 21, 2013