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By Likha C. Cuevas, Reporter
DESPITE the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR)
failure to meet last year’s collection target, the government is
confident that the budget deficit would still be below the ceiling
for 2006, the Department of Finance (DOF) said.
Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran said
government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) have performed
better than expected and nontax revenues would offset the lower
collection performance of its leading revenue-generating agency.
Based on data presented to Malacañang, the DOF
expects total revenues would be P1.3 billion below the
P974.1-billion target by the end of December last year. Total tax
revenues would hit P849.1 billion, P30.7 billion less than the
full-year program.
Expected nontax revenues would be P27 billion
more than the targeted P94.3 billion with the Bureau of Treasury
income hitting P71.9 billion, or P20 billion more than the program.
In the first 11 months of last year, nontax
revenues hit P97.069 billion. In November alone, the government
earned P7.575 billion. About P59 billion of the total was collected
by the treasury bureau, the bulk of which came from interest on
deposits, dividends remitted by GOCCs and income from
foreign-denominated government securities or IOUs.
Proceeds from the disposal of state-owned assets
are expected to exceed the P500-million target by P3.8 billion.
Preliminary data from the BIR showed that it
raised about P644.4 billion, while the Bureau of Customs said it
already surpassed its P197-billion target by P2.129 billion.
Net of expenditures amounting to P1.051
billion, the government’s emerging budget gap would be P81
billion—well within the forecast of P80 to 90 billion.
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