Electronic payment channels account for 86% of BIR take

@Bnicolasbm HE Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) collected P1.67 trillion or 86 percent of its total tax take for 2020 via electronic payment channels as the country grappled with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

TCiting a report from BIR Commissioner Caesar Dulay, the Department of Finance said in a statement on Monday that P4.98 billion of the total e-payments last year were from the additional digital system Paymaya.

On top of Paymaya, other epayment tools that taxpayers can use to settle their tax dues and liabilities include Gcash, Landbank Linkbiz, Development Bank of the Philippines Paytax, Unionbank Online and PESONET.

Aside from online tax payments, Dulay said 21.5 million or 94 percent of the 22.86 million tax returns filed last year were also done online, while only 1.38 million or 6 percent were filed manually, given the mobility restrictions imposed by the government since March 2020 to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Based on preliminary data as of January 8, BIR collected a total of P1.94 trillion last year, down by 11.23 percent from its actual collection in 2019 at P2.19 trillion.

However, last year’s total revenue take by the BIR exceeded by 15.14 percent the P1.68-trillion downgraded full-year 2020 goal set by the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) for the bureau.

The BIR’S tax effort of 10.67 percent in 2020 was only slightly lower by half a percentage point compared to 11.2 percent in 2019, Dulay said.

He also added new business taxpayers registered with the BIR last year also rose by 6.15 percent to P4.37 million from 4.11 million in 2019.

Responding to Dulay’s report on BIR’S performance last year, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the drop in BIR collections in 2020 compared to the previous year was understandable, considering the adverse economic impact of the pandemic and the contraction of the gross domestic product (GDP) by about 10 percent that year.

“Congratulations, Billy [Dulay]. This coming year, I think, will be continuously challenging but I’m very happy the way BIR has responded to this crisis and had not given up,” Dominguez said following Dulay’s report on the BIR’S 2020 performance.

“Basically, your collections went down almost exactly as the GDP contracted, around 10 percent. That’s about right. In other words, you haven’t let up on the pressure. The performance relative to 2019 is still the same even if the collections are lower. It was lower because the GDP dropped. Please thank the team and keep it up,” Dominguez added.

Dulay said he is optimistic that the BIR this year “will do good based on the recent announcement by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas that we are on the road to economic recovery.”

“We will continue rowing and plowing and collecting these taxes,” he said.