PASAY City – Data from the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Bureau of Customs (BOC) show that their combined revenues from the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law exceeded the estimates for the period of January to September 2019.
Total revenues from TRAIN reached P91.3 billion in the first three quarters of 2019, outperforming the collections estimate for the same period of P77.3 billion, said Department of Finance (DOF) undersecretary Karl Kendrick Chua.
Chua said actual total revenues surpassed the estimates by P14.1 billion, or 18.2 percent above target.
This enables the current administration to allocate more funds for its aggressive spending on infrastructure and human capital development.
In terms of its share to the full-year estimate, the reported revenue haul is about 80.8 percent of the projected P113.1 billion tax collections this year.
When compared to the actual TRAIN revenues during the same period last year, this year’s nine-month haul was more than twice the estimated amount, or an increase of 107 percent, Chua said.
“This means we are now closer to completing the 2019 estimates, compared to where we were last year when we were trying to reach the 2018 estimates. This is definitely welcome news, especially for the infrastructure and human development objectives of TRAIN,” Chua added.
Major gains during the first three quarters of 2019 came from personal income tax, imported petroleum excise tax, sweetened beverage excise tax, tobacco excise tax and the documentary stamp tax, whose total take showed an increase of P42.4 billion. (DOF)
