Customs overshoots January collection goal

(Updated 6:33 p.m) The Bureau of Customs on Wednesday said it collected P20.224 billion in duties and taxes in January, exceeding by P216 million its revenue goal for the month. It was the second highest monthly collection in the agency’s history, with the record P21.5 billion collected in July 2010, said Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez. Last month’s revenue haul also topped by P2.62 billion or 14.9 percent the year-earlier collection, the bureau said. Considering that his bureau’s revenue target for the year has been set at P320 billion, up 14 percent from P280 billion in 2010, Alvarez now has his fingers crossed that the collections in January would be sustained in the remaining 11 months of 2011. Reforms within The customs chief cited reforms within the agency that “apparently have started to produce the desired results" and helped overshoot last month’s money goals. “The positive impact of the fundamentals for revenue enhancement, which we started to put in place middle of last year, was felt as early as November and December when revenues rose to P19 billion and P20 billion, respectively, up by at least P3 billion over the BOC’s average monthly collection in 2009," Alvarez said. As part of those reforms the bureau abolished some of its “non-performing units" and merged those with similar functions. At the same time, the bureau started using its electronic-to-mobile system or EM2 to strengthen its valuation reference information system and improve its bonded warehouse management around the country. Another commitment the bureau, the country’s second largest revenue-generating agency after the Bureau of Internal Revenue, has pursued together with the BIR is RATS or Run After the Smugglers. The RATS team has so far filed with the Justice Department 25 cases of smuggling and tax evasion against companies and individuals with combined claims totaling P52 billion. “These parallel activities have obviously convinced tax cheats that smuggling under the Aquino administration is no longer profitable," Alvarez said. Malacañang on Sen. Recto’s proposal In Malacañang, Ricky Carandang, the presidential communications development and strategic planning secretary, said Wednesday the Executive would not support Sen. Ralph Recto’s proposal to lift the cap on the number of dependents exempted for income tax purposes, as it will erode government revenues. As things stand now under the National Internal Revenue Code, a taxpayer has a personal income tax exemption, plus P25,000 for each of up to four dependents or children not more than 21 years old. The senator’s proposal could only lead to a case of tax erosion, the secretary said at a press briefing. “We would like to keep our tax base growing rather than shrinking. And so, we would be a little skeptical, at this point, of measures that would reduce taxes. Unless there was a very good argument for it," Carandang told reporters. The thrust of the Aquino administration is to increase the tax base in order to increase social spending, according to the secretary. “P1 of government fund spent has more of an impact over the short term than P1 of government tax reduced. We would not be looking favorable towards something that would narrow the tax base," he explained. “We have the social services spending. We believe that economically there is more of a multiplier effect on a government expenditure than there is on a tax cut," Carandang added. — With a report by Amita Legaspi/VS, GMANews.TV