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By Chino S. Leyco, Reporter
THE Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) warned that
its first-half collections may have slowed due to the government’s
failure to secure short-term borrowings scheduled for the second
quarter this year.
BIR Commissioner Lilian Hefti said the Bureau of
Treasury’s rejection of bids for Treasury bills may have dampened
the revenue performance of the government’s main tax-collecting
agency.
“We were affected by [the treasury bureau’s]
rejections during the period,” Hefti said.
To attain its revenue goal of P396.3 billion for
the first semester this year, the BIR should have collected P60.23
billion in June.
At end-May, the country’s main tax agency
collected P335.7 billion.
For the second quarter alone, the BIR was tasked
to collect P230.3 billion. From April to May, the agency, however,
raised P169.1 billion, or P61.23 billion short of the target for the
period.
The Department of Finance is set to announce the
country’s fiscal position, including its first-half revenue and
expenditure performance today.
The Bureau of Customs earlier said it already
exceeded its first-half target on higher rice importations by
state-run National Food Authority.
Customs Deputy Commissioner Reynaldo Umali said
first-half collections reached P117.08 billion, surpassing the
target of P116.41 billion.
Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran said the
government may post a P40.96 billion deficit in the first semester.
Under its abandoned balanced-budget plan, the government should end
the first semester with a P40.96 billion revenue gap.
The Finance department is still using the
original quarterly fiscal program for the year, as it has yet come
up with the revised budget program. The Arroyo administration
earlier pushed back its zero budget gap goal this year to 2010.
Beltran said the BIR and Customs are likely to
exceed their collection targets this year due to skyrocketing oil
and other commodity prices and a weak peso.
In the first five months alone, value-added tax
(VAT) collections from petroleum products reached P42.9 billion, or
close to the P43.7 billion raised in the first semester last year.
Of the total amount raised this year, the BIR
contributed P19.09 billion, while Customs accounted for the
remaining P23.09 billion.
The Finance department programmed VAT
collections of P119.58 billion this year.
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.
The government expects P73 billion in revenues
from the VAT on oil this year, including an P18.6 billion windfall
after crude prices averaged above the government’s assumption of
$115 a barrel.
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