Gov’t likely surpassed 2024 revenue target, says DoF
The government might have beaten its revenue target in 2024, the Department of Finance (DOF) said, with nontax receipts making a bigger contribution to the overall collection than before partly due to the remittance of excess funds of two state insurers.
Preliminary figures from the DOF as of Jan. 16 showed the government had collected P4.41 trillion in 2024, surpassing the P4.3-trillion revenue target of the Marcos administration. The final figure will be reported by the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) next month.
“I think we achieved a 16.5- percent revenue-to-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio, the highest in 27 years,” Finance Secretary Ralph Recto said in a recent interview with reporters.
READ: Recto: Gov’t might have missed 2024 growth target
Broken down, the DOF said the emerging figure for tax revenues stood at P3.8 trillion, matching the target for last year.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), which typically accounts for 80 percent of total receipts of the government, collected P2.83 trillion last year. But yesterday, BIR Commissioner Romeo Lumagui Jr. provided an updated figure: P2.86 trillion.
This means the BIR “more or less” hit its revenue goal of P2.85 trillion for 2024, Recto said. Last month, the finance chief said the agency would have posted a bigger haul of P3.50 trillion had all of the proposed tax measures of the Marcos administration been passed.
Nontax haul
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Customs (BOC) raked in P916.6 billion last year based on preliminary data.
While that would mark a 3.78-percent growth from the 2023 haul, it was a tad short of the P939.7-billion goal of the BOC amid a slowing global inflation that lowered the base for the computation of import duties, as well as the reduced tariff on rice to tame the domestic prices of the commodity.
Lastly, the finance department said tax revenues of “other offices” settled at P32.4 billion.
The DOF said the emerging figure for nontax revenues stood at P625.96 billion, beating the P407.49-billion goal for last year.
Recto attributed such a performance to better dividend collections from state-owned corporations. At the same time, the remittance of excess funds from two state insurers –– the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) and Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) –– also boosted nontax receipts.
In a text message, the finance chief said the government would still be able to hit its revenue goal for last year even without the added lift from the decision to tap PhilHealth and PDIC, a move that was heavily criticized by various sectors.
“We hit the revenue targets even without PDIC and PhilHealth. Revenues from PDIC and PhilHealth allowed us to fund unprogrammed appropriations, which will reflect on employment and GDP for 2024 and 2025,” Recto said.
Overall, an above-target revenue collection likely helped the Marcos administration keep the budget deficit within its limit of 5.7 percent of GDP last year.
The government has set a lower deficit-to-GDP ceiling of 5.3 percent in 2025. —Ian Nicolas P. Cigaral
