Targeting Teves

So, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) is on track in its collection efforts, as expected.

Its most recent reports show that the BIR has already raised some P346.96 billion in taxes, its total take from January to July of this year. Significant if compared to how much it was able to raise from January to July of 2005 which was P281.73 billion. The bureau’s performance improvement for the period is, therefore, 23.15 percent, or a P65.23-billion rise over the year-ago collection level.

Based on the July 2006 performance alone, the BIR may have already outdone itself by some 18.62 percent. It collected P7.04 billion more than it did in July 2005. It is worth noting that the target set by BIR for July 2006 is the highest for the first six months of the year. And whether or not one is a fan of the agency, it must be said that the BIR achieved its feat of meeting astronomical targets without any additional resources.

So, why are we talking about these figures again? For one, we may have caught the "monthly performance" bug – that vicious syndrome of looking at the performance of the BIR on a monthly basis, isolated from the other important revenue collection parameters such as the semester and annual revenue collection targets.

Our readers would recall that middle of this year, some parties were all of a sudden reviewing the "monthly performance" of the BIR and raising a howl every time there is a perceived "shortfall" from the monthly collection as if that were the end of the world.

The "monthly performance review" advocates managed to cause a "monthly national stress" after creating the impression that when the BIR does not "reach" a target for one given month, the government would have to shut down its operation. The first week of each month was, therefore, marked by a ritual of paranoid assessment of whether or not the BIR met its "target for the month."

For the record, it was only some time during the second or third quarter of this year that the country became obsessed with the monthly BIR collection performance. Finance sector observers say that was never ever done in the past. For one reason – in the past, the BIR hardly ever attained collection goals. For the most part, the target revenue was merely a planning tool of sorts.

But in the past, there was hardly ever an uproar against an unmet BIR collection target, for a given month or a given year. For the most part, those targets were never met, anyway.

Then, all of a sudden, the "monthly collection levels" gained national prominence. For a while, the monthly review sounded like a sensible performance gauge of the much-maligned agency.

Until the public smelled something fishy.

That was when the "monthly collection performance review" was exploited by some quarters who wanted a shot at the posts of Finance Secretary and BIR commissioner. The real intention behind the monthly review surfaced when some political personalities began to "call" for revamp and replacements after whipping up a hysteria over a single month’s "shortfall".

It appears, however, that President Arroyo was not swayed by the hysteria. Finance Secretary Gary Teves and BIR commissioner Jose Mario Buñag remain firmly in the saddle of the government’s revenue raising team.

The recent move by Secretary Teves that, from hereon, the review of BIR revenue collection performance will now be done on a quarterly basis immediately got warm reception from those who understand the true nature of revenue collection target setting. The view today is that a return to the quarterly revenue collection review would present a more realistic view of how the government is doing as far as raising the financial resources to meet expenditures is concerned.

For the untiring detractors of Secretary Teves and Commissioner Buñag, this is bad news. For them, the problem with quarterly reporting is that the revenue collection trend will no longer show dramatic ups and downs. No more hysterical cries of "shortfall" to justify their appointment to the plum posts.

Finance sector analysts say that if we work backwards and review the BIR performance on a per quarter basis this year, the graph would show a plateau of sorts. The quarterly picture would also show that Teves and Buñag are on track to meet the target set for this year.

The bad news is the salivating aspirants to the plum posts just are not ready to quit.

Our media friends covering the Palace say there is now a quiet but vicious effort to persuade the President to return to the "monthly performance" review.

The lie being peddled is that the quarterly review might not present a true picture of the revenue collection performance. Lies. It is the hysterical monthly review which gave us all unnecessary stress and a wrong picture of how we are doing as far as revenue collection is concerned.

And which, of course, also gave these shadowy characters ammunition to shoot at Secretary Teves and Commissioner Bunag.

So, expect more flaming darts to be thrown in the way of this tandem. Let‚s face it – Teves and Buñag are still targets. And as far as their detractors are concerned, the monthly review still offers the best weapon.

Expect a vicious smear blitz to commence anytime soon. The prognosis is that the aspirants to the Finance and BIR posts must complete the smear job before the end of the third quarter. This is because a three-quarter picture of the BIR collection effort would be inimical to their cause. The picture might show a trend pointing towards hitting the year-end goal.

That would be a major nightmare to those targeting Teves‚ and Buñag’s posts.

But that would be something that would give us all restful sleep.

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