BIR's November collection P3.6 billion below target

By Iris C. Gonzales (The Philippine Star) Updated December 16, 2010 

MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Internal Revenue collected P82.43 billion in November, P3.6 billion below the target for the month of P86.032 billion but the agency nevertheless said this is the BIR’s second highest monthly performance following its April collections of P91.16 billion.

Furthermore, the BIR also said that last month’s tax collections surpassed year-ago figures of P12.47 billion or a growth of 18 percent.

This is the 6th time this year that the BIR registered a double-digit growth in its monthly collections and the fourth time in five months or since July 2010, the agency said.

The November figures brought the January to November tax-take to P753.32 billion, still way below the agency’s 2010 goal of P860 billion.

Nevertheless, the BIR said that the end-November collections reflected a marked improvement of 10.5 percent or P71.41 billion compared to the end-November 2009 figures of P682 billion.

With the latest collection figures, BIR Commissioner Kim Henares said the agency is hopeful that the original full-year 2010 target of P830 billion would be achieved.

“The P830 billion target requires a cumulative growth of 10.3 percent over 2009 collections and already from January to November BIR collections have expanded by 10.5 percent,” Henares said.

The interagency Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC), the interagency group that sets the country’s macroeconomic assumptions, earlier adjusted the BIR target for 2010 to P860.4 billion from P830.4 billion set last July on expectations that the economy would expand faster this year, which in turn would result in higher tax collections.

Henares said the December collections might also show an increase because of the holiday season spending and other business activities during the month. “The holiday season and all the business activity that it brings may just be what the BIR needs to reach its target for December,” Henares said.

The Aquino administration is counting heavily on the collections of the BIR and the Bureau of Customs (BOC) for it to be able to contain the budget gap at P325 billion this year or 3.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

As of end-October, the budget deficit stood at P270.3 billion or below itsprogram of P292.8 billion for the period.