BIR’s August take up 18.6%

The August collection of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) rose by 18.6 percent but still fell short of its monthly target, Internal Revenue Commissioner Guillermo Parayno revealed yesterday.

According to Parayno, there was a marked improvement in the BIR collection across all tax segments, improving from P28.557 billion in August last year to this year's P33.875 billion.

However, Parayno admitted that the August collection was still below the P37.37-billion collection target for the month although he said the gap had narrowed.

"August was a good month for our collection," said Parayno who took over the BIR nine days ago, following the resignation of former BIR Commissioner Rene Bañez.

In July, the BIR registered a 21.6 percent drop in revenue collections, generating only P30.2 billion due to what Bañez called the resistance of the bureaucracy against the reforms being put in place.

Parayno, on the other hand, said that the BIR’s goal was to meet its target for the remainder of the year. For the whole year, the agency’s target collection was pegged at P422.5 billion.

Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho said government’s efforts to increase its revenue collections were not yielding the results it was hoping for due to the combined effects of its unwieldy bureaucracy and the slowdown in the economy.

Camacho said the dismal performance of the BIR was due largely to the slow implementation of the administrative measures that was supposed to yield P16 billion.

"We’re not even one-fourth of the target," Camacho said.

The BIR had launched a package of administrative measures geared mainly to improve collection by an additional P16 billion through the implementation of efficiency measures and various audits.

However, the BIR has been having difficulty implementing these measures.