Bureau of Customs may miss its September collection goal

MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Customs, the government’s second largest revenue earner, said it may miss its September collection goal of P23.5 billion with duties on oil imports now at zero.

“Our goal (for September) is P23.5 billion. I don’t know if we can meet that,” Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez said yesterday.

He said that while most ports reported an improvement in collections, three major ports are not optimistic of meeting their targets. These are the ports of Limay, Bataan and Batangas.

Alvarez attributed the lackluster collections in these ports to the implementation of zero duties on oil products and to zero duties on motor vehicles imported from Japan.

Nonetheless, Alvarez said the agency is still optimistic of meeting its cash collection goal for the year of P241 billion.

He said imports are expected to improve in the remaining months of the year.

“October and November are traditionally big months for importation so we’re still upbeat that our cash collection target will still be attained,” Alvarez said.

He also said that the Department of Finance is now working with the Department of Trade and Industry to “reinstate the tariffs on oil.”

Alvarez maintained that it is now impossible to hit the P280 billion revenue goal assigned to the BOC for 2010 because of the expected drop in non-cash earnings from the government’s Tax Expenditure Fund (TEF).

He said the drop in TEF earnings would largely stem from the tightening of subsidies given to the National Food Authority (NFA).

The TEF is a subsidy released by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to government-owned and controlled corporations and state-run companies such as the NFA mainly to settle customs duties and other taxes arising from the importation of goods.

While there is no cash involved here, it also means revenue losses for the government. If state-owned agencies were able to pay in cash for their duties, the national government would have earned more.

The Aquino administration is moving to address the money-losing operations of NFA by slashing the budget given to the agency and tightening on the country’s rice importations.

Data from the DOF showed that the liabilities of NFA rose to P171 billion as of end-May 2010 from only P28 billion in 2003.

In August, the BOC collected P17.7 billion or lower by 2.3 percent from the P18.2 billion recorded in the same month last year.

The Aquino administration is facing a widening budget deficit that is projected to hit P325 billion this year.

As of end-August, the budget gap has already hit P228.1 billion, more than the P210 billion incurred in the same period last year.

In August alone, the government managed to record a surplus of P1.3 billion, reversing the P22-billion deficit posted a year ago.