BOTH the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) fell short of their respective revenue collection targets for the first four months of the year.
Combined collections of the two agencies from January 1 to April 30 reached only P706.85 billion, which is P28.17 billion short of the total target of P735.03 billion for the period, the Department of Finance (DOF) said in a statement on Tuesday, May 19.
The P706.85 billion collection as of April 2020 is also P193.48 billion lower than the P900.33 billion collected in the same period of 2019.
The BOC collected only P179.44 billion from January 1 to April 30, 2020, which is P27.15 billion or 13.14 percent short of its P206.59-billion target for the period.
The BIR generated P527.41 billion, which is P1.02 billion or 0.19 percent short of its P528.44-billion target for the same period.
Both agencies also posted lower collections compared to 2019 figures.
BIR’s P527.41-billion collection as of April 30, 2020 was P179.37 billion or 25.4 percent lower than its collection in the first four months of 2019.
BOC collection as of April 30, 2020 was also P14.11 billion or 7.29 percent lower than the P193.55 billion collected in the same period last year.
The BIR accounts for 78 percent of the state’s tax collection capacity.
In April 2020 alone, the DOF said total collections by the BIR and BOC amounted to only P105.75 billion, which is P25.25 billion lower than the combined target of P131 billion and P183.85 billion lower than the P289.6 billion generated in April 2019.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III earlier assured the people that despite the sharp decline in collections, the government is “financially able” to address the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
The government is operating on a P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020, a portion of which has been realigned for the Covid-19 response.
Among others, the government is implementing a social amelioration program that provides more than 20 million low-income families a cash subsidy of P5,000 to P8,000 cash grant per family. (MVI/SunStar Philippines)