Kudos to BIR Revenue Region 13

 Two weeks ago, hoping their income taxes will go a long way in nation building, the conscientious taxpaying public made long queues at the offices of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, to pay their dues.  Truly unavoidable, taxpayers or their representatives had to stretch their patience and bear the long wait.  After all, the dues are certain and are to be paid.

To this, Benjamin Franklin aptly wrote an indisputable phrase, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”.  While this could be true in a sense, it is still inadequate.  Ironically, because just as we thought that everything ends in death, the certainty of taxes persists.  Truly unavoidable, even in death, a tax is paid - the estate tax.

However, despite the certainty of exacting taxes even beyond one’s demise, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has little successes so far in hitting its annual collection goals.  Though in 2012, the BIR, in a landmark performance, was able to hit, for the first time, over a trillion pesos (P1.016 trillion) in collection, the fact remains that it fell short of the full-year target of P1.066 trillion.  Nevertheless, however, such performance, though a bit short, was truly unprecedented. 

Such shortfall though is partly attributed to the perpetually increasing annual goals or targets.  Perpetually increasing goals that are partly influenced by wicked politicians, who, in one way or another, needed some help from the BIR and some honest taxpayers to finance, on a subtle note, their whims and caprices, or at nastiest greed, their fleets of expensive cars and palatial mansions.  

Thus, as has been the norm, this year’s goal was again raised.  The Department of Finance (DOF) has assigned the BIR a revenue goal of P1.253 trillion, higher by P187.561 billion or 17.59 percent than the 2012 goal of P1.066 trillion.  This target is also higher than the original 2013 goal of P1.238 trillion but below the previous estimate of P1.272 trillion.  Considering, however, that our economy is expected to grow by about 6% only in 2013 then obviously this target could be a stiff climb.

This goal though includes both general operations and non-operations.  The general operations are regular tax revenues while the non-operations come from taxes imposed on government securities sold by the Bureau of Treasury.  On the general operations, by tax type, the BIR has a goal to collect P759.187 billion from net income and profits; P102.367 billion from excise taxes; P268.631 billion from value-added taxes (VAT); P60.732 billion from percentage taxes and P62.762 billion from other taxes.  Of these targets, the BIR’s Large Taxpayers Group will collect the bulk of the target or P768.308 billion, and the rest is spread out among revenue regions and districts across the country. 

Of the amount spread to the regions, BIR Revenue Region 13 (comprising four districts in the Province of Cebu and one district in the Province of Bohol) was tasked to collect, in the first quarter alone, a seemingly insurmountable P3,920,561,000.  Always known to meet challenges head on, however, the region was not just able to meet it, but surpassed it, by collecting P3,945,441,069.50.  Truth to tell, such collection is .63% higher than its goal and 28.91% higher than its first quarter collections in 2012. 

Considering that, nationwide, the BIR’s collection was just 6.56% over last year’s first quarter collection then Revenue Region 13’s performance was a great feat. Moreover, the regional offices, on the average, increased its collection by just 20.01%.  Bearing in mind that Revenue Region 13’s collection was 28.91% higher than last year’s first quarter, then, the region is obviously dwarfing other regions’ performances. It’s a no-brainer.

Notably, these remarkable performances and record-breaking achievements are happening under the stewardship of government executive “par excellence” BIR (RR13) Regional Director Hermeno A. Palamine.  And to this, we say, unequivocally, kudos to the men and women of BIR Revenue Region 13.

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