BOC sets P3-B record collection in 2 days

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) reportedly made history when their daily collection for two consecutive days last month reached more than P3 billion.

The BOC, the government’s second largest revenue-generating agency next to the Bureu of Internal Revenue, also achieved a total cash collection of P39.545 billion for the whole month of September, the highest cash collection achieved for a month.

In a statement, the BOC said for the first time, with their record check only going as far back as year 2010, they were able to make their highest daily collection on Sept. 28 and 29 with total collections of P3,316,889,000 and P3,193,804,000, respectively.

“The Bureau is happy to report that we were able to make significant improvements in terms of collection. We were looking at the financial reports dating back to 2010, and our director for financial service Cecile Soriano reported that indeed this is the first in BOC history, even if we reviewed records farther back 2010,” said new Commissioner Isidro Lapeña.

He attributed the improvement in the collection to the 20.92 percent increase in valuation compared to the same period last year.

Last month, the bureau was also able to collect duties and taxes based on the total dutiable value of imports amounting to P420,204, 629 compared to the assessed dutiable value of P347,504,895 in the same month in 2016, despite the higher percentage of non-dutiable items of 84.5 percent from the 81.2 percent in 2016.

Lapeña had called on all district collectors, examiners and appraisers to apply the correct valuation instead of using benchmarking.

September figures also indicate a year-on-year increase of 14.71 percent in terms of volume of imports. In September 2016, there was a total of 8,504,422 kilograms of imports, while current volume was 9,755,082 kilograms.

Preliminary collection report showed that despite the three non-working holidays in September, BOC achieved 96 percent of total collection, collecting P40.150 billion against the monthly target of P41.753 billion based on Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing (BESF) target.

The collection figure included TEF or tax expenditure fund collections, which are revenue from government importations not paid in cash but are credited by the BOC from the agencies’ budget.