Bureau of Customs. (File photo from Philippine Daily Inquirer)
MANILA, Philippines—With improved collection efficiency and expensive oil, the Bureau of Customs (BOC) again overshot its revenue target in April, and by nearly a fifth.
In a statement on Wednesday (May 4), the BOC said it collected P65.7 billion in import duties and other taxes last month, 19.6-percent higher than its P54.9-billion goal for April. Last month’s BOC tax take also exceeded the P51.8 billion a year ago.
While costly fuel was a driver in the above-target collections, BOC Assistant Commissioner and spokesperson Vincent Philip Maronilla said in a text message that the country’s second biggest tax-collector’s “continued effort towards a more efficient and effective collection again proved to be the right formula.”
The BOC said “improved valuation, intensified enforcement against illegal importations, and the improved compliance by traders to customs laws” helped it beat its monthly targets under the watch of Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero.
From January to April, the BOC collected a total of P254.3 billion, data from its financial service showed.
The BOC’s end-April collections surpassed both its over P215-billion four-month goal as well as P200.9-billion take a year ago.
The BOC said 14 of the country’s 17 ports also hit their respective April revenue targets: Aparri, Batangas, Cagayan de Oro, Cebu, Clark, Davao, Iloilo, Legazpi, Limay, Manila International Container Port (MICP), Port of Manila (POM), San Fernando, Subic, as well as Zamboanga.
The BOC collected its highest-ever monthly haul of P70.7 billion last March as Vladimir Putin’s destruction of Ukraine drove a tsunami of global oil prices — P26.5 billion came from duties and taxes slapped on imported fuel, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III had said.
The BOC had been tasked with generating P679.2 billion in tax revenues this year — a goal which Guerrero had said would be attainable on the back of expectations of robust imports growth while the pandemic-battered economy recovered.