BIR cuts 2020 collection target to P1.7 trillion

THE Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) further reduced its collection goal for this year to P1.74 trillion, BIR Commissioner Caesar Dulay announced in a memorandum released on Wednesday. The amount was 23 percent lower than the previous target of

P2.26 trillion. It is also 25.32 percent lower than the P2.33 trillion collected in full-year 2019.

Dulay said his bureau’s collection goal for 2020 was made up of the P1.70-trillion target for BIR operations and the P44.07-billion goal for non-BIR ones.

These figures are lower than the previous P2.20- trillion and P54.58-billion targets for BIR and non-BIR operations, respectively.

The memorandum comes after the Department of Finance reported that BIR collections continued to be dragged by the impact of the lockdowns imposed by the government to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 in the country.

Citing preliminary data, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez 3rd said on Tuesday the combined BIR and Bureau of Customs collections in May “are around 50 percent lower than last year’s” because of the community quarantines.

Data from the Bureau of the Treasury showed that the BIR raised P204.8 billion and the BoC collected P58.2 billion in the same month last year.

The Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine that took effect from March 17 to April 30 prompted the government to extend the deadlines for various tax payments and filings.

Actual data, meanwhile, showed that the BIR recorded a 61.56-percent decline in its collections in April, settling at P90.5 billion.

This brought collections in the first four months of the year to also drop to P559.3 billion, 20.52 percent lower than the year-earlier amount.

The government expects revenue collections to be reduced this year after the inter- agency Development Budget Coordination Committee revised its collection target downward to P2.61 trillion, or 13.6 percent of the country’s overall gross domestic product.