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By Angelo S. Samonte, Reporter
The government has chalked up
another triumph: it incurred a smaller budget deficit—P2.4 billion
lower—from January to May this year compared with the same period
last year.
This was the result of decreased
spending on interest payments and improved revenues, the Department
of Finance reported.
Finance Secretary Margarito Teves
said that the government’s fiscal deficit in the first five months
of the year reached P41.8 billion, with a separate deficit for May
of around P1.7 billion.
The January to May deficit is
P2.4 billion lower than the P44.2 billion the government recorded
for the same period in 2006.
The government generated revenues
of P389.8 billion from January to May 2007, or an 11-percent growth,
compared with the same period last year.
Revenue collections for May
reached P94.1 billion, much higher by 5 percent from last year’s
P89.7-billion collection.
The collection of the Bureau of
Internal Revenue for the first five months of the year was P285.6
billion, an increase of 6.6 percent from the previous year.
BIR’s collection for May alone
grew by 8 percent compared to the same period last year, while
actual collections was recorded at P66.7 billion.
On the other hand, the Bureau of
Customs collected P17.5 billion in May but experienced an overall
1.7-percent revenue decline from January to May after collecting
only P75 billion for the period.
The Bureau of Treasury also
recorded a 5-percent drop in income during the five-month period,
generating only P25.3 billion. For May, however, it had an income of
around P6.4 billion while other offices registered P3.5 billion.
From the January to May, the BIR
and the BOC registered cash collections of P285.6 billion and P75
billion, respectively.
On the expenditure side, Teves
reported that the government disbursed a total of P474.3 billion
from January to May 2007, a 9-percent jumped from the comparable
expenditures last year. And excluding interest payments, total
disbursements increased by 21 percent, he said.
Expenditures in May also
increased by 14.3 percent, or P12 billion to P95.8 billion as
revenues improved by 4.9 percent to P94.1 billion.
Due to the strong peso and good
economic fundamentals, interest payments declined by 15 percent over
the same period last year while actual disbursements in May reached
P95.9 billion.
Netting out the interest payments
in the expenditures, the national government recorded a primary
surplus of P12.3 billion in May. Cumulatively, the primary surplus
reached P81.5 billion from January to May.
“We realize that we need to
continue working hard on improving revenues to meet our full year
deficit target of P63 billion. The BIR and the BOC are vigorously
pursuing their action plans to improve their revenue collection.
We are also stepping up our
privatization efforts and other nontax revenues to put our revenues
back on track,” Teves said.
Teves also clarified that they
are not resetting the BIR revenue collection targets. The BIR could
only adjust quarterly targets based on the results of the ongoing
meetings among economic managers.
To further improve its
collections, the BIR said it will exert more efforts in collecting
value-added taxes and excise taxes, the collections of which were
not good in the past few months.
Also, it started surveillance of
large taxpayers, imposed a new auditing program, and has been
verifying tax incentives being given to Bureau of Investments- and
Philippine Economic Zone Authority-registered companies.
“Likewise, the bureau is
focusing on tax credit certificate issuance, cleaning delinquent
accounts, and gathering lists of inactive regional tax payers to
compel them to pay appropriate taxes,” the BIR said.
The BOC, on the other hand, said
that it will intensify the use of x-ray machines in major ports to
curb smuggling among PEZA- and BOI-registered firms. Operators of
Customs bond warehouses will also be more closely watched.
“These firms cheat the
government and hopefully with the implementation of x-ray system the
BOC could mitigate substantial losses to the government,” Customs
Commissioner Napoleon Morales said.
Ecozone locators usually import
large volume of raw materials that are supposed to be reexported
once turned into finish goods but they instead sell them locally.
Morales said those firms organize
fake export transactions to make it appear that they export their
products through the use empty container vans, which result in
substantial tax losses to the government.
The use of x-ray machines will
check these activities without compromising strict Customs protocol,
he said.
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