The Bureau of Internal Revenue said Thursday tax collection rose 8.6 percent in 2015 to P1.45 trillion, but fell short of the target for the year.
BIR commissioner Kim Jacinto-Henares said preliminary figures showed collection in 2015 increased from P1.335 trillion recorded in 2014.
The figures, however, showed the 2015 collection was 13.4 percent short of the P1.674-trillion programmed collection.
BIR is the largest revenue-collecting agency of the government, followed by the Bureau of Customs and Bureau of Treasury.
Meanwhile, Henares said the P2.025-trillion target for 2016 set by the inter-agency Development Budget Coordination Committee was “unrealistic” and “ridiculous”.
The agency’s expected collection this year was 21 percent higher than P1.674-trillion target collection last year.
“The 40-percent plus goal, it’s unrealistic. So I don’t argue about it already. I mean it is so ridiculous that I don’t have even to explain why,” she said.
The DBCC revised downward the growth target for 2016 to 6.8 percent to 7.8 percent from the previous estimate of 7 percent to 8 percent. The interagency committee, however, maintained the revenue collection target.
Henares said despite the tall order, the BIR would continue to work hard to grow its collection.
“We should always grow from the previous year, we should always grow above the nominal gross domestic product.Assuming there is no change in our tax system, then I would say we should be collecting. We should not go lower but in fact we should go higher,” Henares said.