BIR Sept. collections up y-o-y, but below target

Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) collections for September was below target by 0.73 percent, but was up by 9.2 percent from the same month last year, the bureau said Monday. BIR Commissioner Kim Henares said the September collections totaled P66.55 billion, compare with the bureau’s P67.04 billion target, due to lower-than-expected income from the Treasury Bureau. BIR collections, however, was up P5.59 billion compared to the agency’s collection of P60.95 billion in September 2010. Minus the tax on govt securities Apart from its tax collection operations, the BIR also collects the withholding tax on Treasury bills and bonds issued by the Treasury Bureau. Henares noted that on its own, the BIR managed to improve its total collections — minus the withholding tax on government securities — which rose by 0.83 percent to P63.439 billion in September from its P62.917-billion goal. The September collections brought the total revenues in the nine months to September to P686.26 billion, up by P78.93 billion or 13 percent from the collections made in the same period last year. BIR data, however, showed that the P686.26 billion is 1.14-percent short of the target for the first nine months of 2011. 'It is a shortfall' Henares said the BIR is now stepping up its efforts to meet its P940-bilion collection targeted for 2011. “Our shortfall is slight, at only 1.14 percent of total collections, but it is a shortfall nevertheless. We will have to work even harder in the last three months of the year in order to meet our target. And I expect nothing less from the men and women of the Bureau," Henares said. — PE/VS, GMA News