BIR sticking to 2010 collection goal: new chief
MANILA – Newly-appointed Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Jacinto-Henares said she is confident of achieving the agency’s P830.4-billion collection target for the year.
Henares said in a briefing she has no plan to either lower or increase the BIR target for 2010, a report of the Philippine News Agency said.
“We should live by it, but it is something that we should work on,” she said.
Henares, however, said they will review the monthly targets and the allocation by jurisdiction because it is not fair to demand from some BIR offices to deliver something that cannot be realized from taxpayers in their respective areas.
“I have full confidence on the BIR people. The only new in the position is the commissioner but the people on the ground are the same so they know very well what they have to do,” she said.
Henares said she will invest on the latest technology to further improve and fast-track the agency’s operations.
She said she wants computerized tax auditing and accounting system to improve, among others, collection under the Large Taxpayers Service (LTS).
A review of the criteria under LTS and the taxpayers under this list will be done to ensure that the government is getting what is due for it, she added.
Tax leakage will also be looked into since the government is losing from among others the 40 percent of the economy that belongs to the informal sector and the low compliance rate of taxpayers.
Henares said she will bat for the simplification of tax rules and processes and lowering the cost of compliance to encourage taxpayers to pay their dues and improve their tax effort ratio within a year.
The Department of Finance eyes to improve the government’s tax effort as percentage of gross domestic product to 15 percent in the next three years to improve revenue collection and contain the budget deficit.
Last year, tax effort ratio stood at 12.8 percent, a drop from the previous year’s 14.2 percent but as of the first quarter this year the ratio stood at 12.3 percent.
The government posted its highest tax effort ratio in 1997 at 17 percent but this went down slightly over the years.
As of May, the national government’s deficit reached P162.1 billion, 31.6 percent higher over the year-ago’s P123.2 billion and was also ahead of the P145.2-billion programmed deficit for the first half this year.
For last May alone, the budget gap reached P30.5 billion, 168.2 percent higher than the P11.4 billion a year ago.
