BIR to collect P79.012 billion under TRAIN Act in 2019

The Bureau of Internal Revenue main office in Quezon City (File photo from Philippine Daily Inquirer)

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has been tasked to collect P79.012 billion in taxes from the higher or new levies slapped on various goods under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act this year.

The target additional tax take from the TRAIN Act was included in the BIR’s overall collection goal of P2.331 trillion for 2019, according to Revenue Memorandum Order No. 9-2019 issued by Internal Revenue Commissioner Caesar R. Dulay.

Last year, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the government had a target collection of P3.2 trillion in tax and nontax revenues for 2019, of which P181.4 billion would come from the Duterte administration’s comprehensive tax reform program.

However, the P181.4-billion collection goal from tax reform was supposed to come from proceeds of the TRAIN Act as well as from proceeds from the tax amnesty and the revamp of the motor vehicle user’s charge (MVUC) under tax reform Package 1B.

While the tax amnesty progressed in Congress, the proposed reforms in the MVUC system had stalled.

An off-shoot of the TRAIN Law, Package 1B also includes bank secrecy relaxation and automatic exchange of information — tax administration measures removed by the Senate from the version of the first tax reform package passed by the House of Representatives in 2017.

For 2019, the BIR was programmed to collect P1.06 trillion in taxes on net income and other profits, P506.8 billion in value-added tax (VAT), P400.5 billion in excise taxes, P112.4 billion in percentage taxes, as well as P177.5 billion in other taxes.

A total of P2.26 trillion must be collected by the BIR from its operations, while the take from non-BIR operations (including final withholding and documentary stamp taxes from government securities transactions) had been programmed to reach P73.2 billion. /atm