Customs exceeds May goal

The Bureau of Customs collected P39.34 billion in import duties and other taxes in May, exceeding its target, the Department of Finance said.

In a statement, the DOF said the BOC’s tax take in May was 2.77 percent higher than its goal and up by 23.52 percent from the P31.85-billion collection in the same month last year.

In his report to Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III, Customs Commissioner Nicanor E. Faeldon said the agency collected a total of P176.06 billion from January to May, up 13.54 percent from the P155.06 billion posted in the first five months of 2016.

However, the BOC missed by 1.69 percent its five-month target of P179.08 billion, Faeldon said.

In January to May, the BOC’s cash revenue hit P175.62 billion while the tax expenditure fund, which covered government importation, reached P440 million.

In May alone, the BOC collected P39.27 billion in cash revenue on top of P70 million from the TEF.

The BOC had been tasked to collect P468 billion in import duties and other taxes this year, up from last year’s actual collection of P396.37 billion.

During the BOC’s command conference last week, Dominguez said the agency “needs to transform itself into a truly modern bureaucratic organization … to better facilitate trade, fight smuggling and bar the entry of illegal drugs and terrorists from the country’s borders.”

“The role of the BOC is more than just improving revenue collection to provide government the wherewithal to fund public investments. We expect the bureau to continuously improve its procedures and processes to facilitate trade. This is important in building an investments-led growth that will produce employment opportunities for our people,” Dominguez said. —BEN O. DE VERA