MANILA, Philippines—Amid a return to economic growth after last year’s worst annual recession, the Bureau of Customs (BOC) continued to exceed its monthly collection targets, with its August take overshooting the goal by 1.9 percent.
In a statement on Wednesday (Sept. 1), the country’s second-biggest revenue agency said it generated P54.05 billion in import duties and other taxes last month, bigger than the P53.06-billion target.
The BOC’s tax take in August also surpassed the P44.4 billion it collected in 2020, which was 17.2-percent lower than collections in the same month in 2019 due to the pandemic-induced recession.
Revenues in August this year were likewise higher than the P53.6 billion collected in August 2019, pre-pandemic.
In a separate bulletin on Wednesday, Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran, chief economist of the Department of Finance, said the BOC already exceeded its pre-pandemic revenues starting last July.
As of end-August, the BOC’s collections totaled P412.96 billion, larger than both 2020’s P347.3 billion and 2019’s P411.2 billion.
So far this year, the BOC collected more than its monthly goal every month since January.
Citing a preliminary report of its financial service division, the BOC said six of the country’s 17 ports hit their targets: Port of Manila, Clark, Davao, Limay, San Fernando, and Surigao.
The BOC had been tasked with raising P616.75 billion in revenues this year, a target which Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero had told the Inquirer was “attainable” amid a gradually recovering economy.
The latest government data showed that cumulative merchandise imports jumped 29.8 percent year-on-year to $53.34 billion during the first half of 2021.
The Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) expects imports to grow by 12 percent this year, reversing last year’s 19.5-percent drop.
Documents on the proposed P5.02-trillion 2022 national budget showed that the BOC aims to collect P671.66 billion in tax revenues next year.