BIR misses end-Q3 revenue target
MANILA, Philippines — The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) fell short of its revenue target for the first nine months of the year by P43 billion, though it still posted double-digit growth in September.
As of Oct. 13, the latest data showed that the BIR collected P203.58 billion in September, an 11-percent jump from the P183.5 billion collected in the same month last year, which the agency attributed to voluntary tax compliance and proactive taxpayer assistance initiatives.
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This brought revenues from January to September to P2.465 trillion, up by 6 percent from the P2.33 trillion collected in the same period last year.
However, the BIR missed the Development Budget Coordination Committee’s (DBCC) target of P2.508 trillion for the period by 2 percent, or P43 billion.
The latest cumulative figure accounts for about 73 percent of the BIR’s full-year P3.393 trillion target, which the DBCC lowered by P38 billion.
Michael Ricafort, chief economist at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., stated that the weak economy affected the BIR’s collection performance.
“It was largely a function of unusually slower economic growth due to government underspending since the latter part of 2025. As a result, it fundamentally slowed business and economic transactions and tax collections,” Ricafort said.
As it is, the BIR also missed its collection target in the first half of the year, generating P1.63 trillion and falling short of its P1.65 trillion target.
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In its midyear report, the DBCC attributed the shortfall to the oil price shock, which affected consumer spending and, in turn, taxes such as value-added tax and excise tax. Other tax categories also either declined or posted slower growth, including withholding taxes, taxes on bank deposits and percentage taxes on banks and financial institutions, and documentary stamp tax collections.
Ricafort indicates that tax reform measures and the government’s catch-up spending plan could support the BIR’s tax collections in the remaining months of 2026.
“Tax reform measures, such as intensified tax collections based on existing tax laws, new taxes, and higher taxes, would structurally help improve BIR tax collections and the overall fiscal performance,” Ricafort said.
“The BIR’s tax revenue collection performance would partly hinge on the national government’s catch-up spending, especially on infrastructure, to make up for the underspending. The catch-up would help pump-prime the economy, improve tax collections, narrow the budget deficit, and reduce the NG debt-to-GDP ratio,” he added. /pai
