BIR Western Pangasinan explains sluggish collection

Assistant Revenue District-5 chief Atty. Elmer Carolino

ALAMINOS CITY – The top honcho of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) who is based here and oversees Western Pangasinan justifies the sluggish tax collection for this year as experienced by the BIR all over the region. Revenue District-5 chief Quirino Ramos said that the withholding taxes from the national and local governments that should be remitted to this office for one has fell short this year compared to the last year’s collection. He blamed the “Belt-Tightening” measures resorted by the Aquino Administration in the first semester of this year as the culprit of the anemic tax collection that affects even the collection  of the entire BIR. “Iyong mga tax administrative na meron kaming administrative control ang tumaas (collection) like mga negosyante riyan na kaya naming i-monitor. But we fell short in the collection of tax that the government pays to us. Iyong taxes na iyan  refers to withholding tax. Not only TRA (Tax Remittance Advisory) because itong mga LGU (Local Government Units) na inaawas nila ang withholding tax ng payee na ni-ni refer nila sa amin, “ he stressed. TRA is when private subcontractors’ income tax and Value Added Tax are withheld by the government that contracted their service for a certain project. Ramos said he wrote his superiors that the reason why his collection was under goaled this year was because of the decline of the remittances from the government. “January to July (2011) P84 milion lang pag baba ng withholding tax ko. Ang under goal collection ko lang is  P72 million. So kung na-collect ko lang I am over goal”. He said that he divulged all of these because he wants to be transparent before them and the public. Ilocos Norte Governor Imee R. Marcos corroborated the woes on the slow tax collection encountered by Ramos and most of the RDOs in the Ilocos Region. Marcos in her column in a tabloid said that the government should not crow on the billions of pesos it save for the first fiscal semester as it did not spend a dime for this year. Ramos is assisted by Assistant RD-5 Atty. Elmer Carolino. Atty. Carolino recently was making waves and raves at a local TV and radio when he commissioned the police’s Criminal Investigation & Detection Group to investigate an alleged falsifier of tax documents at the Register of Deeds’ Office in the capital town Lingayen (Mortz C. Ortigoza).