Economy seen to grow from 4.6-5.5% in '09

The Philippine economy is expected to grow at a range of 4.6 to 5.5 percent in 2009, higher than the previous estimate of 4.1 to 5.1 percent but lower than the official forecast of 6.1 to 7.1 percent.

The technical group of the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) submitted the latest recommendations yesterday to government economic managers who have yet to approve the latest macroeconomic growth assumptions for next year, a source said.

The revisions took into account easing inflation which is expected to help spur economic growth next year.

It also took into account the government’s plan to increase infrastructure spending by 20 percent next year.

Government economic managers also revised the collection target of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs (BOC) following the latest adjustments on the economic growth projections for 2009.

The BIR is expected to collect P915 billion in 2009 or P53.3 billion lower than the official target of P968.3 billion. The revisions took into account the adjustment in the 2009 GDP growth to 4.6 to 5.5 percent from the official GDP growth range of 6.1 percent to 7.1 percent.

On the other hand, the BOC is expected to collect P310 billion next year from the previous target of P300.1 billion because of the expected depreciation of the peso against the dollar.

The DBCC expects the peso-to-the-dollar exchange rate to range from P45 to P48 against the greenback from P42 to P45 to the dollar previously, in light of the global economic slowdown.

Newly appointed BIR commissioner Sixto Esquivias IV also said that for this year, BIR collections may also be lower.

He said the BIR may collect P810 billion this year or P35 billion lower than the revenue goal of P845 billion.

The BIR earlier projected that it would lose P11.8 billion in revenues this year because of the implementation of Republic Act 9504, the law that exempts minimum wage earners from the payment of tax. The law, implemented in July, also increased the tax exemption for regular income earners.

For 2009, it also expects a revenue loss of P17.477 billion due to the reduction of the minimum corporate income tax to 30 percent from 32 percent.

The Reformed Value Added Tax (RVAT) law, passed in 2005, increased the minimum corporate income tax to 35 percent from 32 percent. However, this would be reduced to 30 percent starting 2009. The RVAT law also raised the sales tax to 12 percent from 10 percent and lifted exemptions on oil and petroleum products.

The BIR collected P55.8 billion in September, up 14 percent from P48.9 billion recorded a year ago, latest data from the Finance department showed.

This brought the January to September BIR collections to P587.9 billion or 18.9 percent below the program for the period of P606.8 billion, data further showed. However, the nine-month collections were 12.6 percent higher than the P521.9 billion collected by the BIR in the same period last year.