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By ADRIAN STEWART CO
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Saturday, February 25, 2017
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MANILA – The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) fell short of its 2016 collection target. It only garnered P1.575 trillion, 3 percent lower than the P1.62-trillion target.
BIR commissioner Caesar Dulay said in a press conference on Tuesday that despite only collecting 95 percent of the target, it is still 9.5 percent higher than the collection in 2015.
“In 2016, we had a collection of about P1.575 trillion. And this is about 95 percent of the goal—attainment of the goal that was given to the agency. This is about 9.5 percent growth rate against the 2015 collections,” Dulay said.
“The figures or the information I received is that traditionally after a collection after an election year, the growth rate goes down. In our case, while we have not achieved the goal, we were able to at least maintain that growth rate in our efforts,” he added.
The BIR head said P924 billion of the P1.575 trillion tax revenues collected last year came from income tax while the rest came from other taxes like excise and corporate taxes.
Dulay also noted that for the BIR to achieve its target of P1.829 trillion in 2017, it has to have “massive recruitment mode” since the BIR only has less than 9,000 personnel or 50 percent short of the 21,000 needed.
“To achieve the collection, we have to grow by 16 percent from our last year’s collection performance,” Dulay said. “We have to hire more people to do the collection. That’s why we’re asking Congress to get us out of the Salary Standardization Law.”
“To be able to collect P1.839 trillion, we need people, we need personnel. So part of our program for 2017 is to go into a massive recruitment mode. We need examiners, CPAs, lawyers to do the work and collection effort of the agency,” he added.
Dulay furthermore urged taxpayers to cooperate and help the agency in achieving its collection target for this year. The BIR will also strengthen its programs against tax evaders.
“Tax administration cannot do without law enforcement. Otherwise, there would be no voluntary compliance on the part of taxpayers. So we had to continue this program of running after tax evaders,” Dulay said./PN
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