REVENUE collections of the attached agencies of the Department of Finance (DOF) were P156 billion short of the earlier announced targets, which the government attributed to the implementation of an enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Luzon.
In an emailed statement, the DOF said collections of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Bureau of Customs (BOC) amounted to P600.85 billion in the first quarter.
This is P156.26 billion lower than the P757.12-billion revenue target for the quarter and P10.17 billion less than the revenues collected in the same period last year.
Broken down, the BIR collected a total of P455.45 billion, 2.86 percent lower than the P468.86 billion collected in 2019, and 22.86 percent lower than the P590.43-billion target.
Meanwhile, BOC collections amounted to P154.41 billion, 2.28 percent higher than last year’s P142.17 billion but 12.75 percent lower than the P166.69 billion target.
“Our tax collections are definitely going to be a bit lower than our original target but as I said, these are things that we can finance,” said Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III.
President Rodrigo Duterte earlier ordered an enhanced community quarantine over Luzon from March 17 to April 13. It has since been extended to last until April 30 given the rising number of confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Moving forward, Dominguez said that the revenue decline could be as much as P318 billion if economic growth would drop to -1 percent this year, and P286.4 billion if the economy posts zero growth.(GMA News)
