Sunday, August 19, 2007 BIR Ifugao overshoots July goal
THE Bureau of Internal Revenue-Ifugao once again overshot its goal for July.
Revenue Officer Villa Bulayungan said their office exceeded its collection target by P1,354,895.61. The goal for July was P5,496,000 but total collection amounted to P6,850,895.61.
Bulayungan said the accomplishment can be attributed to the strict monitoring of withholding taxes in the different government agencies and the local government units by the BIR staff. “We also requested government agencies to update their payments.”
She disclosed the expanded withholding tax implemented to contractors of government projects is one of the reasons for the increased collection. “As soon as they get their contracts, the concerned office issues a certificate of credible tax withheld at source. The office or institution awarding the contract automatically withholds the tax and remits it to the Bureau.”
Documents obtained from the BIR showed that among the 11 municipalities, Lamut has the highest collection of P2,811,288.36., followed by Mayoyao with P2,414,299.97 and Alfonso Lista, P2,140,152.01.
Bulayungan said that remittances of national agencies located in the municipality of Lamut such as the Department of Agrarian Reforms, Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Ifugao State College of Agriculture and Forestry have helped increase the collection of the town and the taxes paid by contractors in Mayoyao also contributed much to the collection of local government unit.
For Alfonso Lista, the business tax paid by the Aboitiz Corp., which is operating the Magat Dam, increased also its collections.
The rest of the municipalities have the following collections: Banaue - P1,785,391.28; Kiangan - P1.328,950.11; Aguinaldo - P1,128,728.47; Asipulo - P999,068; Hungduan - P870,148.89; Tinoc - P848,599.11; Hingyon - P844,069.21 and Lagawe - P106,655.
Meanwhile, the district revenue office here is optimistic that the Integrated Tax System (ITS), a nationwide computerized system of the BIR, would help the government track down tax evaders.
Bulayungan said BIR staff were recently oriented on the ITS. With its goal of helping increase government revenues, increase customer satisfaction and improve efficiency and transparency of BIR operations, she said the Bureau scheduled two batches of trainings of employees here in Manila.
Stressing that there would be no exemption to the campaign against tax evasion, Bulayungan said the BIR here is determined to go after tax evaders. Even payrolls of government employees, which are being processed at the local level, are being monitored by the office.
She added the BIR requires agencies to submit a diskette of alphabetical list of employees being withheld in order that the BIR would tally the tax withheld to the amount being withheld by the agency concerned.
“With the computerization of data, we can easily get the information even if they are nationally paid,” Bulayungan said.
Bulayungan said one of the problems with national government agencies who pay their income taxes at the national level is that the employees only file their income tax at the local level if they have refundables. “They refuse to visit our office to file their income tax if they have an amount to pay.”
But she praised the Philippine National Police, which requires its employees to submit their ITR for the past three years before they are promoted. “This way, they are forced to pay their taxes if they did not pay yet.”
On business establishment, “the problem is we base the business tax from the official receipts being issued by the establishments. However, not all the goods being sold are receipted thus we cannot impose the exact tax.”
To minimize this problem, she is recommending that some of the BIR staff be deployed to business establishments to conduct surveillance on the average sales every week or every month.For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star General Santos.
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