SEC remits collections to Treasury

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has stressed that it continues to remit, in accordance with law, its collected fees to the Bureau of Treasury.

This was in response to allegations that the SEC had failed to remit to the National Treasury P444 million out of the P866 million in fees collected in 2002. The SEC was among the 10 government agencies found to have failed to remit all their collections to the BTr.

In a letter to Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr., chair of the House Committee on Appropriations, SEC associate commissioner Joselia Poblador said the Commission continues to remit its collections via deposit with the LandBank under the BTr’s savings account on a daily basis.

Poblador noted that the withdrawal of said collection from the BTr’s savings account in the LandBank rests solely within the Treasury’s discretion and entirely outside of SEC’s control.

"We have certification letters from said Bureau acknowledging that these collected amounts have been received," Poblador said.

Poblador said the SEC, however, gets to receive the certification letters from the Bureau two weeks to two months later.

The House Committee on Appropriations earlier reported that government agencies failed to remit P9.1 billion in collected fees to the BTr, the custodian of all revenues raised from taxes and fees.

The Treasury received only P12.041 billion in fees paid for drivers’ licenses, passports and other documents while the actual amount collected by these agencies amounted to P21.13 billion.

The missing funds were discovered by the BTR as it noted the discrepancies between the actual fees collected by agencies and the amount remitted to the Treasury.

The Air Transportation Office had the biggest amount of "missing" collections. Out of its P2.4 billion collections, it remitted only P786 million to the treasury or a difference of P1.4 billion.