BIR eyes P360 billion from large taxpayers

MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) is eyeing to collect P360 billion from the country’s large taxpayers this year or higher than the P339 billion collected last year, BIR Assistant Commissioner Nestor Valeroso said yesterday.

The figure represents roughly 60 percent of the agency’s full-year target of P830 billion, he also said.

Valeroso is confident the BIR would meet this target given enhanced measures against large taxpayers particularly better profiling and monitoring of big-ticket companies and projects.

The agency yesterday launched its large taxpayers Service 2010 Tax Campaign which is expected to translate to better collections for the BIR. LTS now has roughly 2,000 clients.

The LTS group caters to large corporate clients including Top 1,000 corporations in the country.

These clients are those with net worth of P300 million and pay an annual income tax and withholding tax of at least P1 million. They also pay value-added tax of at least P100,000 for any quarter and P1 million in excise tax per taxable year. Valeroso said better collections from the LTS group would mean more funds to finance the government’s programs.

“Building the gap between the large taxpayers and the Filipino poeple who benefit from taxes is our goal,” Valeroso said.

President Arroyo attended yesterday’s event held at the NBC Tent, Fort Bonifacio, Global City.

During his welcome speech, BIR Commissioner Joel Tan-Torres expressed confidence that the agency would meet its full-year collection goal of P830 billion as he noted that the BIR has met its monthly targets for two consecutive months since December 2009.

For the month of February, Tan-Torres also expressed confidence the BIR would meet the P48-billion goal.

In December 2009, the BIR collected P68.4 billion, above the P60-billion target for the period. This was repeated in January when the BIR collected P61.67 billion or P5.67 billion higher than the P56-billion target for the period.

For the whole of last year, the BIR collected P750.3 billion or P48.2 billion short of the program of P798.5 billion.