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By Angelo S. Samonte, Reporter
THE government exceeded its
first-quarter collection target for the reformed value added tax
(VAT), the Department of Finance (DOF) said on Wednesday.
The DOF said the government
generated P18.7 billion in the first three months of the year,
exceeding the P18.6 billion target by P86 million and last year’s
collection by P1.5 billion.
The Bureau of Internal
Revenue (BIR) generated P8.7 billion and is ahead of its target by
P2.7 billion while the Bureau of Customs (BOC) collected P9.9
billion, or P2.66 billion short of its collection goal.
The DOF said the
first-quarter performance was due to higher collection from the
power industry (P3.9 billion), higher yields from input VAT on
capital equipment (P1.9 billion), the one-month impact of the cap on
input VAT crediting (P0.7 billion), and the lower impact of
mitigating measures (P2.7 billion).
However, collections were
negatively affected by the lower volume of domestic oil production
(P0.1 billion as against the expected P1.2 billion), the higher
input VAT claims ( P2.7 billion as against the expected P1.9
billion) and slightly lower collections from non-VAT reforms (P0.83
billion versus the programmed P0.79 billion).
RVAT collections rose by 8.9
percent year-on-year. BIR collections increased from P6.2 billion to
P8.7 billion, a 41.1 percent growth, while BOC collections declined
from P11.0 billion to P9.9 billion, a 9.2 percent drop.
For this year, the RVAT
goal increased by 19.23 percent to P89.42 and excluding VAT reforms,
the government is tasked to raise P68.14 billion. Of the total the
BIR is expected to contribute P28.67 billion while the BOC must
generate P60.75 billion.
As mandated by law, about
30 percent of the incremental VAT collection went to social services
such as education and health care and infrastructure particularly
farm-to-market roads.
For this year, the share of
social services and infrastructure from the tax measure would rise
to 35 percent and would further push to 40 percent in 2008, 45
percent in 2009 and 50 percent in 2010.
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