BIR pressed to collect P1T from large firms in 2017

The Bureau of Internal Revenue will try to collect taxes worth over P1 trillion from large firms this year after failing to do so in the two previous years.

In a statement Monday, the BIR said its Large Taxpayers Service collected a total of P963 billion from the country’s 2,320 biggest corporations last year, missing the adjusted P1.004-trillion target for 2016.

The LTS’s 2016 take nonetheless grew by 9.3 percent from 2015’s P881 billion.

As early as 2015, the BIR already targeted LTS collections breaching the P1-trillion mark, but failed.

The LTS, which accounts for about 62.4 percent of the BIR’s annual collections, “is expected to be further pushed to the limit this 2017 with an assigned collection goal of around P1.105 trillion,” the country’s largest tax-collection agency said.

“With a personnel complement of just 561 competent and professional revenue officials and personnel, LTS Assistant Commissioner of Internal Revenue Teresita M. Angeles is setting her eyes on making the list of trillionaire collectors of the [BIR] when the LTS breaches the P1-trillion collection mark this year,” according to the BIR.

Angeles was quoted by the BIR as saying that the 2017 LTS target was “huge but achievable.”

The BIR defines large taxpayers as corporations with an authorized capitalization of at least P300 million registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission; multinational enterprises with authorized capitalization or assigned capital of at least P300 million; publicly listed corporations; universal, commercial and foreign banks; taxpayers with an authorized capitalization of at least P100 million belonging to the banking, insurance, petroleum, telecommunications, utilities, alcohol and tobacco industries; and corporate taxpayers engaged in the production of metallic minerals.

Also on Monday, the BIR kicked off its 2017 tax campaign dubbed “Ako, Kaisa sa Pagbabago,” graced by President Duterte, who had said the agency was among the most corrupt in government.

Citing tentative data, BIR Commissioner Caesar R. Dulay earlier said that the BIR’s total collections reached P1.574 trillion in 2016, below the P1.62-trillion adjusted target of the Duterte administration.

Last year’s total tax take of the BIR was nonetheless 9.5-percent higher than the P1.441 trillion collected in 2015.

For 2017, the BIR is expected to collect a total of P1.829 trillion in taxes.

To achieve this year’s target, equivalent to almost four-fifths of the government’s tax revenue program of P2.313 trillion, Dulay had said that the BIR plans to improve taxpayer compliance through the expansion of its compromise settlement program for audit cases of large taxpayers.

Also among the BIR’s priority programs for 2017 are the continuous implementation of the Run After Tax Evaders (Rate) as well as “Oplan Kandado” programs; comprehensive taxpayer profiling and industry benchmarking and updating of zonal value schedules. Ben O. de Vera