THE Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) collected P1.547 trillion from January to September this year, surpassing its goal for the nine-month period.
Tentative data obtained by the BusinessMirror showed the agency slightly breached its P1.532-trillion goal for the period by over 0.97 percent.
BIR Deputy Commissioner for Operations Group Arnel SD Guballa also said this is above the amount they netted in the same period in 2020, at P1.446 trillion. Year-on-year, this represented an increase of 6.98 percent.
For the month of September alone, BIR’s haul amounted to P154.7 billion, also above its P144.26-billion goal for the month by 7.24 percent.
This was also up by 9.59 percent from P141.16 billion in September 2020.
Asked what was behind the BIR’s exceeding its collection targets, Guballa cited intense monitoring and enforcement, particularly under its Oplan Kandado program that padlocked establishments for tax law violations.
For his part, BIR Commissioner Caesar Dulay attributed the agency’s collection performance to “professionalism, dedicated public service of BIR employees and their love of country.”
In a message to the BusinessMirror, Dulay also expressed confidence that the BIR will be able to achieve its full-year collection target of P2.081 trillion.
“On track so far,” he said.
Last year, BIR collected P1.95 trillion, exceeding its downscaled revenue collection target of P1.686 trillion.
The government hopes to raise more revenues this year to cover the expected higher budget deficit. The Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) now projects the deficit to reach a new record high of 1.86 trillion or 9.3 percent of the country’s GDP.
The DBCC earlier slashed its growth projection for the Philippine economy this year to 4 to 5 percent from 6 to 7 percent previously, due to the reimposition of lockdowns.
If not for the recent surge in Covid-19 cases, the economic team earlier said their original growth target of 6.5 to 7.5 percent could have been attainable.