Reforms help raise Customs take

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) missed its 2013 revenue target but registered a surge in collections during the “reform period” that started in November, government data showed.

The Department of Finance (DOF) on Friday said in a statement that the BOC collected a total of P81.325 billion from November to January, which officials refer to as the reform period.

The figure represented a jump of about 19 percent from the P68.19 billion collected in the same three-month period the previous year, according to the DOF’s preliminary figures.

The Finance department, parent agency of the BOC, said the double-digit increase in collections from November 2013 to January 2014 was an improvement from the year-on-year growth of less than 5 percent recorded in January-October 2013.

“One of the key performance indicators for the reform’s success is the improvement in its cash collections,” said John Phillip Sevilla, who was appointed Customs commissioner late last year.

“One can draw a line before and after October, when the reform operations and personnel movements stabilized…” Sevilla said in a statement.

The double-digit increase in collections during the reform period was credited partly to the conduct of examination of more shipments.

The DOF said the intelligence and enforcement groups of the BOC had examined 142 shipments that were suspected to be carrying undervalued or misclassified goods. Of the shipments, 90 percent were indeed found to be involved in technical smuggling.

As expected, however, the BOC missed its official collection target of P340 billion for 2013.

The shortfall was blamed largely on smuggling, which critics said was perpetuated by the deeply rooted culture of corruption in the agency.

Based on an earlier report by the finance department, the BOC collected P252.4 billion from January to October.

This meant that the BOC had to collect at least P87.6 billion from November and December to meet the full-year target.

But the Finance department, which declined to give a monthly breakdown of collections, said cumulative collections by the BOC for November to January totaled only P81.325 billion.

Meantime, Sevilla claimed that the BOC, under his leadership, was committed to the reform agenda.

“The public should expect to see more of these Customs reform initiatives rolled out in the next few months,” he said.

Some of the reforms the BOC undertook toward the end of last year were the replacement of the deputy commissioners, the transfer of some Customs employees to the research unit of the finance department, and the creation of the Office of Revenue Agency Modernization.

This year, the BOC is tasked to collect at least P408 billion.