BIR still struggling to meet targets

THE BUREAU of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) tax take last May of P128.5 billion was not only flat year-on-year but also below that month’s goal.

The Bureau of the Treasury’s latest cash operations report released yesterday showed that the country’s biggest tax-collection agency gained a mere P200 million more than the P128.3 billion it collected during the same month last year. The collections in May were likewise lower than the P158.1-billion target for the month.

At the end of the first five months, the BIR’s collections stood at P596.3 billion, up 9 percent from P549.1 billion in the same five-month period of 2014.

The end-May figure, however, was nearly P100 billion short of the five-month goal of P694.1 billion.

This year, the BIR was tasked to collect P1.67 trillion in taxes, 25.4-percent higher than the actual 2014 collections of P1.34 trillion. The BIR’s collection target for 2015 is equivalent to 12 percent of gross domestic product or GDP.

The BIR had slashed its tax take goal for this year—originally at P1.72 trillion—twice due to recently approved revenue-eroding measures.

In January, the BIR cut this year’s target to P1.7 trillion, citing the P16.9 billion in foregone revenues from the expanded exemption on workers’ benefits. Last February, the BIR again lowered its goal as the law that lifted to P82,000 the tax-exemption cap on 13th-month pay and other bonuses was expected to result into P30 billion in foregone revenues.

The BIR’s collections for next year have been programmed to grow by 21 percent to P2.026 trillion, breaching the P2-trillion mark for the first time. Ben O. de Vera