BIR to increase auditor headcount

The Bureau of Internal Revenue will embark on a workforce rationalization program, under which it will boost its number of tax auditors as a percentager of its total staff count.

According to BIR Commissioner Kim Henares, hiring more tax auditors is consistent with the ongoing anti-tax evasion drive of the BIR.

Currently, she said, tax auditors make up only 20 percent of the BIR’s 12,000-strong workforce. The bigger share of 80 percent is made up of support staff.

Ideally, what the BIR wants is to reverse the ratio to have 80 percent of its staff composed of tax auditors and only 20 percent of its workers as support staff.

“Since the BIR is tightening on auditing, we need more tax auditors,” Henares said.

Henares said the BIR needs less support staff now given the available technology that has substantially reduced non-audit types of work load.

The BIR accounts for over 60 percent of the government’s revenues. It is, thus, tasked with the goal of continually increasing tax collection to realize the goal of reducing the government’s budget deficit over the medium term.

Last year, the government posted a P314-billion deficit equivalent to 3.7 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

For this year, the target is to limit the deficit to P300 billion, or 3 percent of GDP.

The government aims to further trim the deficit until hitting just 2 percent of GDP by 2013.

Henares pointed out that the government’s effort to improve tax efficiency and boost collections is bearing fruit, as people are now more inclined to pay the correct amount of taxes, based on field reports.