No underspending in Jan to April — DOF

MANILA, Philippines — Government expenditures are within the programmed level in the first four months, the Department of Finance (DOF) said over the weekend.

In a statement, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said the government’s lower-than-programmed deficit in the first trimester was not due to underspending, but rather due to higher-than-target revenue collections.

“The reason we didn’t exceed our target deficit is because we exceeded our total (target) by P58.2 billion as of the first four months. Tax revenues from January to April was impressively higher than last year’s collections for the same period,” Dominguez said.

According to data from the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr), cumulative fiscal deficit from January to April reached P105.9 billion, below the P167.1 billion programmed for the period.

This was, however, more than three times higher than the P30.2 billion shortfall recorded in the same period last year.

Dominguez said spending during the period reached P1.033 trillion, P3 billion lower compared to the P1.036 trillion target.

He said this shortfall represents the government’s savings in interest payments, which amounted to only P120.3 billion instead of P123.8 billion as programmed.

“Total spending is lower by P3 billion mainly because of the P3.4 billion interest savings. Clearly, there is no underspending as actual non-interest expenditure is higher than the program by P400 million,” Dominguez said.

As against last year, disbursements as of end-April was 29 percent higher than last year’s level.

On the other hand, government revenue rose by 21 percent to P927.4 billion from P768.3 billion a year ago.

Dominguez said this was a result of the effective implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law.

“Higher excise tax take due to the implementation of the TRAIN Law, as well as improved and correct valuation and tariff classification drove the robust growth,” the BTr said in a separate statement.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), for its part, was able to collect P655.7 billion during the period, 17 percent up from P558.1 billion last year.

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) also generated P176.6 billion, 31 percent higher than the same period in 2017.