Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said Friday combined revenues raised by the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs increased 9.4 percent in the first nine months from a year ago, driven by the government’s intensified collection efforts.
Dominguez said in a message to reporters the tax take by the two agencies reached P2.03 trillion from January to September, up by 9.3 percent from the same period last year.
He said the BIR’s nine-month collection hit P1.54 trillion, breaching the prior year’s achievement by 6.9 percent.
Customs’ collection from January to September amounted to P469.80 billion, up by 18 percent from the same period in 2020.
Meanwhile, the BIR said it padlocked 322 establishments in the first nine months for various tax code violations, which resulted in collections of P1.867 billion in back taxes.
BIR Deputy Commissioner Arnel Guballa said in a report during the DOF executive committee meeting that this accomplishment under the Oplan Kandado program included shutting down the operations of two establishments in September, which yielded P290 million in tax collections.
Guballa also said the BIR rolled out its Internal Revenue Integrated System-Taxpayer Registration System in the third quarter in all revenue district offices, except in 12 offices that do not yet have fiber optics capabilities.
“The RDOs now have an electronic facility for capturing, monitoring and reporting taxpayer’s primary and secondary registration data—whether individual or non-individual, and whether with or without businesses,” Guballa said.
Dominguez earlier ordered the BIR and the BOC to further intensify their operations against tax cheats, in keeping with President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on graft and corruption.
