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Philippines: BIR, Customs collect less in March

  • Apr 20, 2020

Slower economic activity because of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Luzon pulled down actual collections by the Bureaus of Internal Revenue (BIR) and of Customs (BoC) for the month of March, the Department of Finance (DoF) said on Sunday.

In a statement, the Finance department highlighted that both bureaus only hauled in a combined P163.15 billion for the month, which is P34.5-billion or 17.45-percent lower than the P197.64-billion take for the same month last year. It is also P85.36-billion short of the P248.5-billion target for March.

Breaking down, BIR collections amounted to only P118.35 billion, which is P29.71-billion or 20.06-percent lower than last year’s P148.05 billion.

For the same month, BIR collected P80.19 billion from the country’s biggest taxpayers under its Large Taxpayers Service (LTS), the DoF also said.

In the Customs bureau, March collections amounted to only P44.8 billion or P4.79-billion lower than last year’s figure of P49.59 billion for the same month.

The Finance department added that March collections by the BIR and BoC resulted in a first-quarter revenue of P600.86 billion. It was P10.17- billion less than the revenues collected in the same period last year.

This amount is also P156.26-billion or 20.63-percent short of the P757.12-billion revenue target for the first quarter.

From January to March of this year, the DoF also mentioned that the BIR collected a total of P455.45 billion, which is 2.86-percent or P13.41-billion below the actual amount of P468.86 billion collected for that period last year.

The BIR’s LTS collected P284.39 billion for the three-month period or 6.14-percent lower than last year’s figure of P302.98 billion.

The BoC’s collections, meanwhile, totaled P145.41 billion in the three months to March, which is a slight improvement of 2.28 percent over last year’s P142.17 billion, the Finance department also said.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez 3rd noted earlier that estimates by the Development Budget Coordination Committee show that if the economy posts zero growth this year as a result of the health, social and economic impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, the decrease in revenues will be around P286.4 billion.

“Our tax collections are definitely going to be a bit lower than our original target but as I said, these are things that we can finance,” he has said.

Last March 16, the government placed Luzon under a month-long ECQ to contain the spread of Covid-19 virus in the country. Originally set to be lifted on April 12, the government extended it to April 30.

This prompted the government to also extend the deadlines for the filing of tax returns and other due dates for loans, rents, among others, to ease the financial burden of people affected by the prolonged ECQ.

But even with the significant decline in both bureaus’ revenue collections, Dominguez has assured the Filipino people that the country is “financially able” to meet the unexpected challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic because President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered economic managers since the beginning of his term to maintain fiscal discipline and exercise prudence in state spending.

Source: https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/04/20/business/business-top/bir-customs-collect-less-in-march/716125/