BIR, Customs collections down 24.8% in 5 months

No thanks to a COVID-19-induced recession, tax collections declined by almost a fourth year-on-year to P874.9 billion as of end-May, the Department of Finance (DOF) said on Friday.

In a statement, the DOF said the taxes collected by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) from January to May fell 24.8 percent from P1.16 trillion a year ago.

The combined BOC and BIR take also missed the adjusted P1.06-trillion target for the five-month period by 17.7 percent.

Last month, the Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) cut this year’s total tax and nontax revenue collection goal to P2.61 trillion, down 16.7 percent from actual revenues of P3.14 trillion last year.

The BIR’s end-May revenues amounted to P664.7 billion, down 27.1 percent year-on-year and 21.7-percent short of target.

The BOC’s collections of import duties and other taxes during the first five months dropped 16.5 percent year-on-year to P210.2 billion, also 1.6-percent below goal.

During the month of May alone, joint BOC and BIR collections reached P135.5 billion, well below the actual collections of P263.6 billion a year ago and the P353.8-billion program.

The BIR’s collections of P105.4 billion in May was 48.7-percent lower year-on-year and 67.1-percent below target.

The BOC collected P30.01 billion last May, down 48.4 percent year-on-year and 9.9-percent short of the goal.

The BIR’s large taxpayers service received P189.5 billion in income taxes from big corporations during the January-to-May period, lower by 31.7 percent year-on-year and below-target by 26.4 percent.

Total income taxes collec­ted during the five-month period declined 30 percent year-on-year to P341.6 billion, also 22.3-percent lower than the end-May program.

During the month of May, value-added tax (VAT) from large taxpayers amounted to P12.5 billion, down 41 percent and 35-percent below target. Including VAT collections from smaller taxpayers, the end-May take reached P125.5 billion, 21.2-percent lower year-on-year.

Last May, total VAT collections of P15.4 billion fell short of the P32.4 billion collected during the same month last year.