BIR RDO 74 collection up by P46 M in first half of 2005

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) District Office 74 reported a total collection of P 1.205 billion in the first half of 2005 registering a P46 million increase from the collection of P 1.159 billion of the same period last year.

Revenue District Officer Ricardo Espiritu attributed the increase to the result of the massive tax campaign activities that they have conducted involving all sources of taxes in their area and some reforms initiated in his office.

“The dialogues that we have conducted with tax payers per line of industry, business or profession have significant contributions in our tax collection efforts. We encourage our tax payers to voluntarily pay their taxes in compliance with our office's regulation and to be truthful in their declarations”, said Espiritu. He added that reforms initiated in his office especially related to good transaction dealings have also greatly helped in getting positive responses from these people.

Aside from holding related information dissemination activities, Espiritu said they also conduct relentless Tax Mapping operations and strict monitoring on the remittances of withholding taxes of both government and private entities.

The RDO 74 covers the 15 municipalities in the 1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd districts of the province of Iloilo, the 5 municipalities of Guimaras province and the lone city of Iloilo.

Espiritu said his office is tasked to collect P2.434 billion for the year 2005 which is equivalent to 69 percent of the region's goal of P3,528,358,000.00 billion.

Espiritu said despite the increase in their revenue collection for the first half of 2005 as compared to last year's collection, the district office is still short by P6,856,760.57 from its target goal collection of P1,435,731,000.00 or by 0.47 percent  due to the transfer of the P84.2 million TRA collection to Bacolod City.

From January to July 2005, Espiritu said the BIR Revenue Region No.11 was able to collect P2,110,331,023.00, exceeding its target goal of P2,080,770,000.00 by P29,561,023.00 or 1.42 percent.

Last year, the BIR Revenue Region No 11 ranked no. 3 in terms of excess of collection among the 18 regional offices in the country.

Espiritu said the implementation of the Attrition Law has also contributed to the employees' efficiency.  “They became more industrious”, he said.

The Attrition Law was among the first batch of fiscal reforms implemented by the Arroyo administration that provides a system of reward and punishment for tax collectors exceeding or missing target collections. Other related fiscal reforms are the enactment of the indexation of taxes on alcohol and tobacco and the Expanded Value-Added Tax Law which was signed into law by President Arroyo last May but implementation of which is temporarily restrained by the Supreme Court.

The passage of these revenue-generating measures are expected to help shore up government's fiscal position, and reverse the credit rating downgrade that certain rating agencies have given the Philippines.

On the other hand Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said that once the TRO on the E-VAT law is lifted, the government hopes to reduce its budget deficit, initiate reforms that will improve the delivery of social services to Filipinos and build more infrastructure to sustain long-term economic growth. (PIA)