THE Bureau of Internal Revenue in Davao Region (BIR-Davao) projected a 10 percent drop from the P21 billion target revenue collection for 2020 due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
BIR-Davao assistant district officer Abolhasan Balindong said the drop in revenue collection could be due to the drop in sales of tourism-related establishments, which has been greatly affected by the Covid-19.
“The worst-case scenario, magkakaroon ng lockdown, tapos hindi na tayo tatanggap ng mga visitors from other places so bababa ang ating turismo tapos hindi na rin lalabas ang mga tao (The worst case scenario would be a lockdown where we will no longer allow entry of visitors from other places so our tourism will be affected),” he said.
“Siguro magpapanic-buying lang sa mga groceries or supermarkets per [not] yung usual po na transactions, like tumambay or kumain sa labas so babagsak po yun sa mga restaurants (There will still be panic-buying in groceries or supermarkets but not the usual activity like eating out so the sales of the restaurants will decline),” he said.
However, he said the 10 percent loss or about P2 billion is a modest estimate since there have been no confirmed cases of Covid-19 yet in the city.
“Since wala pa tayong confirmed case dito sa Davao, so nag [set] lang kami ng mga 10 percent na ibababa. Sana di po mangyari dito sa Davao (Since we do not have any confirmed case here in Davao City so we just set a 10 percent loss. Hopefully, it will not happen here in Davao City.),” he said.
With this, the agency will also intensify its surveillance and sales monitoring since tourism establishments are among those who have low tax compliance.
He said these establishments, as well as hardware stores, are targets of the agency’s Oplan Kandado.
Balindong said the agency eyed to analyze the revenue collection per industry to ascertain the effect of Covid-19.
He added it is also their way to respond to those industries which will use the current health situation to justify paying less tax.
“Yun yung fear namin baka yung ibang establishments mag take advantage na kahit hindi siya affected ng coronavirus sasabihin, ‘Ay bumaba ang sales namin because of the Covid-19’ (We fear that establishments will take advantage of the situation. They might say that their sales decline due to Covid-19 when they are not really affected),” he said.
“The only way to check is to audit them [and conduct] surveillance. But the most effective is the surveillance because we will see their daily transactions,” he said.
He said they will still know the exact revenue loss by the end of the first quarter collection.