PHL posts P17-B deficit in first half, says DOF

Largely due to lower spending, government posted a narrower budget deficit than programmed in January to June, the Finance Department said Wednesday. In the first half of the year, government recorded a P17.231-billion budget deficit, significantly narrower than the programmed P152.1 billion. The deficit for June alone was P7.691 billion, narrower than the P34.6 billion in the same 2010 period, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said. “Truly, our tack on plugging loopholes in our tax administration system instead of imposing new taxes to shore up state revenues is now bearing fruit, and as we continue our hard work towards this, we are confident that government coffers will continue to be boosted," Purisima explained. Other collections The Finance Department noted that revenue collections from January to June reached P681.640 billion while total expenditures amounted to P698.871 billion. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) collected P457.996 billion in the first half of the year, below the programmed P460.3 billion for the first six months. Data also showed the Bureau of Customs (BOC) collected P128.557 billion, also below the programmed P142.34 billion for the period. The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr), for its part, recorded an income of P50.773 billion while other offices collected a total of P44.314 billion. Revenue collections in June alone totaled P100.139 billion — P66.904 billion from the BIR and P21.663 billion from the BOC. BIR collections that month were 12.7 percent higher year-on-year, while BOC revenues dropped by 6.82 percent. The income and collections of the BTr from other offices for the month were meanwhile recorded at P2.297 billion and P9.275 billion, respectively. In terms of disbursements during the period, expenditures were 11 percent lower than the figures in the same period last year. Likewise, the P107.83-billion disbursements in June were also 14.9 percent lower compared to the same month in 2010. — PE/VS, GMA News