BIR nearly meets Oct goal

MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), the government’s main revenue agency, collected P86.1 billion in taxes in October, nearly meeting its target for the month.

BIR Commissioner Kim Henares attributed the strong October performance to hard work and positive results of the agency’s anti-tax evasion program.

“We did not exactly meet it. We are short by P79 million but everyone has been working hard,” Henares said.

The P86.1 billion in tax revenues in October reflected a P15.6 billion or 22.13- percent increase from last year’s figure. The agency had a target to collect P86.18 billion in October.

The October collections brought the January to October revenues to P858.6 billion, which is P101.81 billion or 13.45 percent more than last year’s figure.

The BIR accounts for 70 percent of total government revenues. Its tax collections come from BIR operations and non-BIR operations. Revenues from BIR operations come from collections of the different districts.

Income from non-BIR operations, on the other hand, comes from final withholding taxes on interest payments and documentary stamp taxes due from government debt securities issued by the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr).

For October alone, collections from BIR operations amounted to P83 billion, P13.76 billion or 19.89 percent higher than a year go.

The October 2012 collections from BIR operations is also P570 million more than the target of P82.4 billion.

Similarly, collections from non-BIR operations amounted to P3.15 billion, P1.84 billion or 140.34 percent higher than the October 2011 collections. However, this is P650 million below the target set for non-BIR operations for the month.

Collections by the regional offices amounted to P33 billion, or P4.09 billion or 14.13 percent more than its assigned goal for the month.

This is also P9.25 billion or 38.95 percent more than the collections made in October of 2011, continuing with the trend of double-digit growth being registered by the regional offices for this year, the BIR said.

Collections by the Large Taxpayer Service, in charge of large individual and corporate taxpayers amounted to P49.96 billion, P4.5 billion or 9.93 percent more than the October of 2011 figure.