BOC collections up 14% in July
MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Customs recorded a 14 percent increase in collections this month, but it was not enough to hit its revenue collection target for the period.
“Last time I checked, we were 14 percent up compared to last year,†Customs Commissioner Rozanno Rufino Biazon told reporters on the sidelines of Moody’s Investors Service evaluation last Monday.
Asked if the bureau was able to meet their P29.637-billion target for July, Biazon said: “For the target, we are still below.â€
The BOC, which accounts for a fifth of total government revenues, has already collected P145.131 billion as of the first semester, a slight improvement from previous year, but way below its P163.853-billion target for the period.
A 14-percent uptick from previous year would mean Customs collected a total of P27.8 billion this month. During the same period last year, Treasury data showed the bureau’s collections likewise posted an improvement of 14.6 percent.
Official Customs collections data will be released in the middle of next month.
For June alone, BOC’s collections dipped 0.2 percent, a scenario Biazon attributed to importers’ decision to hold shipments following Customs’ “assertion†that it would strengthen its fight against smugglers.
“Remember in June, we asserted our anti-smuggling efforts so shippers played a wait-and-see game. They thought we would stop for this month, so they piled their shipments,†Biazon said.
On why Customs missed its July target, Biazon admitted there were “slippages†coming from smuggling, which the President himself said cost the government roughly P200 billion a year.
Free trade agreements (FTA) with other countries, he said, were also to blame as the government fails to consider foregone revenues from FTA of about P60 billion a year on setting Customs target.
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