TAX collections could fall short of target this year, Finance Secretary Ralph Recto said on Friday, but nontax gains will still enable the government to hit its overall revenue goal.
This came as the Finance Department, in a Facebook post earlier in the day, said that the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs (BoC) — the main tax-collecting agencies — had continued to post revenue gains as of end-September.
“Both may miss their target, but we will still achieve our revenue target from non tax revenue,” Recto told The Manila Times.
In the Facebook post, the Finance Department said that the BIR had collected P2.08 trillion for January-September, 12.13 percent more than the P1.9 trillion recorded a year earlier.
The BoC, meanwhile, was said to have recorded a year-to-date tax take of P690.84 billion, 4.61 percent higher than the P660.4 billion posted in the same period last year.
The results were posted following a command conference on Wednesday to assess the agencies’ collection performance and discuss plans and strategies for 2025.
Present during the meeting were Recto, BIR Commissioner Romeo Lumagui Jr., Customs Commissioner Bienvenido Rubio and other officials from the Finance Department, the BIR and the BoC.
Lumagui and Rubio were not immediately available for comment.
The government is targeting to collect P4.3 trillion in revenues for 2024, with the BIR tasked to collect P3.05 trillion and Customs around P1 trillion.
Based on latest official data from the Bureau of the Treasury, revenue collections as of end-August totaled P2.99 trillion, 15.91 percent up from the year-earlier P2.58 trillion.
Collections for August alone were up 24.4 percent to P386.3 billion, which the Treasury said last month was “driven by strong nontax collections.”
Overall revenues, meanwhile, were “already 70.10 percent of the P4.3 trillion full-year program for FY (fiscal year) 2024.”
Taxes accounted for the bulk — 85.47 percent or P2.56 trillion — of the cumulative collections and were 10.83 percent higher than the P2.31 trillion posted a year ago.
The remaining 14.53 percent or P434.9 billion came from nontax sources, which surged by 58.66 percent year on year and were already 96.73 percent of the 2024 target of P449.6 billion.
The BIR grew collections by 12.55 percent to P1.9 trillion as of end-August, while Customs recorded a 5.66-percent increase to P614.4 billion.
The August revenue figures allowed the government to trim its seven-month budget deficit to P697 billion, down 4.86 percent from the year-earlier P732.5 billion shortfall and equivalent to 46.95 percent of the P1.5 trillion programmed for 2024.
Spending for the January-August period rose by 11.32 percent to P3.7 trillion, or 64.13 percent of the P5.8 trillion targeted for 2024.
The finance chief has said that the BIR needed to focus on accelerating its digitalization initiatives, enhancing tax enforcement and pursuing delinquent accounts.
Customs, meanwhile, will work on improving the assessment and collection of duties and taxes on imports, ensuring compliance with customs laws and bolstering border security to identify undervalued and misclassified goods.
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