Customs misses collection goal by 15%

The amount of import duties and other taxes collected by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) in 2015 not only fell year-on-year but also settled below its goal on the back of lower crude oil prices.

In a statement Monday, the BOC reported that its collections last year reached P366.9 billion, down 0.6 percent from the P369.3-billion haul in 2014.

The country’s second-biggest tax-collection agency missed its full-year target of P436.5 billion as the actual tax take was 15-percent lower than programmed.

The BOC attributed the decline in collections to an overall decrease in the total value of imports, without citing specific figures.

“Especially for oil, the value and volume [of imports] were affected,” it explained.

As early as July, Customs Commissioner Alberto D. Lina already conceded that the 2015 collections goal could not be reached, but he was then optimistic that the full-year take could hit at least P390 billion.

In the month of December alone, the BOC collected P37.1 billion, lower than the P38.1 billion a year ago as well as below the P39.4-billion target.

The BOC nonetheless grew its cash collection last December by a fifth to about P32.5 billion.

According to the BOC, the ports that had the best performance in 2015 were Iloilo (above-target by P2.3 billion), Legaspi (by P290 million), and Zamboanga (by P175 million).

The ports with the worst performances, meanwhile, were Limay, San Fernando and Aparri, which fell short of their respective targets by P23 billion, P835 million and P455 million, respectively.

Last November, Lina also conceded that the BOC’s P498.7-billion collection goal for 2016 earlier set by the Cabinet-level, interagency Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) would be a challenge, still due to cheaper global oil prices.

While the BOC would try to request the DBCC to hopefully bring down its collections target for this year, Lina had said that they would nonetheless do their best to collect the programmed revenues.

Lina also reiterated his earlier proposal that this could be a good time to raise the excise tax levied on oil products, which comprise almost a third of the BOC’s tax take.

The Customs chief had noted that the President had the power to adjust taxes and import duties upward at rates not more than 10 percent through an executive order.