BIR large taxpayer unit exceeds Jan target

The Bureau of Internal Revenue’s Large Taxpayers Service collected P32.060 billion in January or P1.470 billion higher than the previous month’s collection of P30.590 billion.

This month’s collection is 4.80 percent higher than the previous month’s figure and is also P3.886 billion more than the P28.173 billion recorded in the same period last year, latest data from the BIR showed. 

BIR Commissioner Lilian Hefti attributed the better-than-expected figures to the group’s enhanced efforts.

Of the whole Large Taxpayers Service division, the Large Taxpayers Regular Group collected P18.410 billion or P689.761 million higher than its collection target for the month of P17.719 billion.

The figure is P2.077 billion higher than its January 2007 collection of P16.331 billion or a growth rate of 13.79 percent.

Hefti said she has created six sub-divisions to monitor tax payments and cater to the needs of six major industries in the country.

“These are manufacturing, banks and other financial intermediaries, insurance, real estate and trading, utilities and transportation and other services,” Hefti said.

The Large Taxpayers group has held several tax dialogues with the taxpayers per industry to address many issues that have slowed down revenue collections.

Early this year, the group embarked on a plan to improve professionalism and competence of human resources, account officers, intensify monitoring of tax payments, develop industry benchmark for account officers to match payments of income tax and value-added tax (VAT), intensify pre-audit of tax returns and intensify audit and investigation to be done on a random system.

The BIR, the government’s main revenue earner, has been trying to boost collections to help state coffers.

The National Government posted a budget deficit of P9.4 billion last year against the program of P63 billion.

The BIR collected P711.6 billion or P54.3 billion lower than the program of P765.9 billion.

In December alone, the National Government posted a deficit of P22 billion as total revenues reached P90.3 billion. Total expenditures rose to P112.4 billion.

The BIR, for its part, collected only P63.9 billion in December or below the target for the month of P64.91 billion.