Customs improves collections in March

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) said yesterday it has improved its revenue collection efforts during the month of March amid its intensified effort to curb smuggling in the country.

Based on its preliminary report, the BOC said it collected P37.654 billion in duties and other tariff last month, up 16 percent from P32.383 billion collected in the same period last year.

This puts the bureau’s total collections to about P104.154 billion during the first three months of the year.

The March collection also exceeded BOC’s target of P36.572 billion by three percent.

According to Customs data, 10 out of 17 BOC collection districts exceeded their March collection goals.

This was led by the Manila International Container Port, which collected P11.721 billion in revenues as compared to its P11.30-billion target.

Other ports which earned better than their targets also include Batangas (P8.5 billion in collections), Cebu (P1.68 billion), Cagayan (P1.266 billion), Davao (P1.321 billion), Clark (P131 million) San Fernando (P244 million), Legaspi (P77 million), Iloilo (P219 million) and the Zamboanga (P32 million).

From B1 The BOC is the second largest tax collecting arm of the government, traditionally contributing about 20 percent of total tax revenues.

Just last year, the bureau earned P396.365 billion, about 7.8 percent higher than the 2015 level of P367,534.

Customs is aiming to further increase its revenues this 2017 to P468 billion, which Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon considers “achievable.”

“With the strong implementation of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act and our intensified operations against smuggling, I am positive that we will be able to achieve, or even exceed our 2017 revenue goal,” Faeldon said.