"Ending political accommodations at the BIR and BOC is a step in the right direction towards instituting reforms in these revenue collecting agencies that have failed dismally in meeting their targets this year," she said.
According to reports, Camacho has vowed to make political accommodation a thing of the past by appointing and promoting employees and officials of the BIR and BOC.
Oreta, however, maintained that Camacho’s move against political accommodation would improve revenue collections only if complemented by a non-nonsense campaign against tax evaders.
"Secretary Camacho would be doing better by running after big-time tax evaders or the so-called crooks in Armani suits if he really wants to see high-impact results in his goal to improve revenue collection in 2003," she said.
She urged the finance department to start the campaign by running after 616 companies found by the BIR to have under-declared their value added taxes by a total of P12.6 billion.
In a related development, Sen. Robert Jaworski cited yesterday the BIR for exceeding its collection target in November by P500 million.
Jaworski, chairman of the Senate committee on economic affairs, said he was not surprised because November, along with December, is traditionally the peak month for revenue collection. – Efren Danao