DESPITE the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the overall trade environment, the Bureau of Customs (BOC) on Monday announced that it collected P525.3 billion from January to October this year, exceeding its target collection for the period.
But for October 2021 alone, the bureau’s Public Information and Assistance Division told the BusinessMirror that the BOC has only collected P55.9 billion, missing its target of P57.6 billion.
In a briefing with the House Committee on Public Accounts, Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero said the bureau exceeded by 2.4 percent or P12.1 billion its P513.2-billion collection target for January to October this year.
“For this year, from January to October the collection efficiency is 102.4 percent based on the collection of P525.3 billion [surpassing] the P513.2 billion collection target this year,” Guerrero told lawmakers.
“The collection is also 17.1 percent higher than the collection of the same period last year,” he added.
The BOC targets to collect P616.7 billion this year. This is significantly higher by 21.84 percent than the downgraded target set for the BOC at P506.15 billion last year.
The bureau’s total revenue collection last year reached P539.8 billion, above its full-year revenue collection target by 6.6 percent.
The downgraded goal for BOC last year was a 30.76-percent cut from the original target of P731 billion.
For 2022, Guerrero said the bureau is projected to collect P671.7 billion based on the emerging revenue program approved by the Development Budget Coordination Committee last July 19. The program is 8.9 percent higher than the revenue program for this year.