Tax collections breach P2 trillion in 7 months

MANILA, Philippines — The government has collected P2.2 trillion in tax revenues as of end-July, hitting almost 60 percent of its full year goal as it ramps up digitalization and plugging of leakages.

Preliminary data released by the Department of Finance showed that tax collections from January to July reached P2.22 trillion, 11 percent higher than the P1.998 trillion revenues in the same period last year.

This is equivalent to 58 percent of the 2024 tax revenue goal of P3.82 trillion.

Tax revenues are expected to account for 89 percent of overall revenue collections for the year at P4.269 trillion. The balance would be sourced from non-tax revenues and privatization proceeds.

For July alone, tax revenues reached P400.9 billion, 15 percent higher than the P348.88 billion collections last year.

Broken down, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) raked in P320 billion, up by 17 percent from P273.13 billion in the comparative 2023 period.

However, this was 3.4 percent below the goal of P331.31 billion for the month of July.

For the Bureau of Customs (BOC), revenues hit P80.9 billion, a 10.7-percent improvement from P73.06 billion in July 2023.

For the January to July period, BIR saw its collections rise by 12.6 percent to P1.68 trillion while BOC’s haul inched up by six percent to P536.42 billion.

Finance Secretary Ralph Recto recently convened the BIR and BOC to assess the agencies’ collection performances and discuss plans to meet their targets for the year.