BIR’s Large Taxpayers division gets lower collection target

The Bureau of Internal Revenue’s Large Taxpayers Service (LTS) has been given a lower collection goal this year of P402.568 billion, or 6.35 percent below the 2007 collection goal of P429.855 billion, latest data from the tax agency showed.

This after Internal Revenue Commissioner Lilian Hefti ordered the transfer of some LTS clients to the revenue regions as part of efforts to improve the agency’s tax collection operations.

From 1,289 clients previously, LTS now has less than 1,000 but over 800 clients.

 The LTS group caters to large corporate clients including top 1,000 corporations in the country.

These clients are those with net worth of P300 million and pays an annual income tax and withholding tax of at least P1 million. They also pay value-added tax of at least P100,000 for any quarter and P1 million in excise tax per taxable year.

With a collection goal of P402.568 billion this year, the division accounts for almost half of the BIR’s 2008 revenue target of P844.95 billion.

The move to delist some clients from the LTS group has been criticized by many large taxpayers.

Industry sources said being delisted from the group would mean that they would now have to deal with revenue regions and settle their taxes along with the smaller taxpayers.

This, they said, could take time and extra effort compared to the previous practice when they have one group focused on their needs.

BIR officials, however, are hoping that the move would result in more efficient tax collections.

The BIR, the government’s main revenue earner, is under pressure to meet collection goals.

In April, the agency collected P91.3 billion, up by 20.6 percent from the P75.8 billion recorded in the same period last year.

From January to April, its collections increased by 17.9 percent to P258 billion from the P218.9 billion recorded in the same period last year.