BIR marks 112th anniversary today amid revamp jitters
The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) celebrates its 112th anniversary today faced with a formidable challenge of raising more than 12 trillion this year and amid anxiety by its key field officers over the forthcoming massive reorganizations to cleanse the agency of corrupt personnel.
BIR Commissioner Caesar Dulay has invited Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, other cabinet secretaries as well as officers of business and professional organizations to grace today’s anniversary rites.
Unlike in previous years, the celebration will be simple and austere as the new BIR administration is implementing simple lifestyle and no gift policy.
Rank-and-file employees expressed the hope that the reorganization will be fair.
Informed sources said the revamp will be carried out shortly. To be affected are officials holding positions from assistant commissioners, regional directors, revenue district officers, heads of specialized audit divisions and down to tax examiners.
Dulay is under instruction from President Duterte to remove all undesirable BIR officials and employees to make the agency more taxpayer-friendly, honest and efficient in the collection of taxes.
Insiders predicted that the unrealistic collection target of 12.03 met.
The same sources anchored their prognosis on the collection performance of the bureau during the first semester of the year which totaled to only 1785 billion.
They said even if the bureau garners additional 1785 billion for the remaining six months of the year the collection goal will remain elusive, considering that August and September are considered lean months as far as collection is concerned.
They noted that traditionally the bulk of the collection is generated during the first six months of the year because of important tax deadlines like the filing of the annual income tax returns. trillion is not likely to be