BIR hit collection target in August

The tax take of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in August rose to P138.5 billion, which also exceeded its monthly target for the first time so far this year.

Data released by the Department of Finance on Thursday showed that the collections of the country’s biggest tax agency last August surpassed by 9 percent the P127.6 billion recorded in the same month last year.

It was also higher by 5.2 percent than the adjusted collection goal of P131.7 billion for the month.

Last Aug. 17, the BIR issued Revenue Memorandum Order (RMO) No. 17-2015, which revised the targets for the months of August and September. The programmed collection for August was cut to P131.7 billion from P160.7 billion previously. The goal for September, meanwhile, was raised to P149.2 billion from the original P120.2 billion.

The full-year collection target was kept at P1.67 trillion.

As of end-August, the BIR collected a total of P962.6 billion, up 8 percent from P890.7 billion in the first eight months of last year.

The BIR, however, still missed the adjusted end-August goal of almost P1.1 trillion.

This year’s target is 25.4-percent higher than the P1.34 trillion collected last year, which was also short of the 2014 goal of P1.46 trillion.

For next year, the BIR’s tax take had been programmed by the Cabinet-level interagency Development Budget Coordination Committee to jump by 21 percent to P2.03 trillion, the first time collections could breach the P2-trillion mark.

But last month, Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim S. Henares told a Senate hearing that the annual targets were “very ambitious,” hence could not be achieved.

Separately, the BIR has ordered establishments giving discounts to senior citizens to include the beneficiaries’ identification documents in their sales records.

Revenue Regulations (RR) No. 11-2015 signed by Henares and Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima included this amendment to RR 08-2010, which was the implementing guidelines of Republic Act No. 9994 or the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010.

Under RR 11-2015, the government-issued identification documents that must be noted in establishments’ sales records should be any of the following: Senior citizens’ ID card, passport, digitized Social Security System ID, Government Service Insurance System ID, Professional Regulation Commission ID, Integrated Bar of the Philippines ID, Unified Multi-Purpose ID, or driver’s license. Ben O. de Vera