THE Bureau of Internal Revenue in Davao Region (BIR-Davao) bared that the quarantine measures being implemented in March this year had minimal effect on the revenue collection in the first quarter of 2020.
BIR-Davao legal division chief Monica Delfina Penelope Alvizo said the agency exceeded their collection target of around P3.5 billion from January to March 2020 by about 15.12 percent.
However, she clarified that this was after their 2020 collection target was lowered to P18.5 billion from the original P21 billion due to the ongoing health crisis.
Earlier, BIR-Davao regional director Joseph Catapia reported that they were able to collect P18 billion of revenue in 2019, although it was about P1 billion short of 2019’s target of P19 billion.
“So far, from January to March, goal pa naman kami compared to last year,” Alvizo said.
“Meron na rin sigurong effect ang Covid-19 (novel coronavirus) but not that much kasi siguro mas malaki pa ang supposed to be na nacollect namin kung wala itong pandemic (Covid-19 probably had an effect on revenue collection but it is minimal. But we could have collected more taxes if there is no pandemic). Our collection would have been better but so far, it is still positive,” she said.
But she said the central office of the BIR is currently in the process of adjusting the collection target for April but the regional office is anticipating a lower revenue collection goal.
“For April, our collection goal would be very much lower since almost all of the economic activities have been affected by temporary closures or shutdowns. The businesses will find it hard to generate income and we expect they will pay lower taxes,” she said.
“With the situation now, we are just hopeful that we will be able to achieve our collection goal,” she said.
Alvizo admitted the ongoing quarantine measures posed a challenge in their efforts to collect taxes needed by the government to implement their programs amid the pandemic.
“We have continuous appeal to taxpayers to file and pay the correct taxes even before the set deadlines through telephone, text brigades, dissemination of infomercials or campaign ads. It is to remind the taxpayers that we have deadlines and they should do their part despite the ECQ (enhanced community quarantine),” she said.
She added the agency recently extended the filing of the income tax return (ITR) to June 14 under Revenue Regulations No.11-2020.
“We extended the deadline para hindi naman sila maka penalty and hindi ma-consider na late filing,” she said.
She said the public can file ITR and pay them online.