Tax collected not enough to fund gov’t expenses - BIR Exec

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

CALASIAO – A Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue said that the taxes collected by his agency and the Bureau of Custom are not enough to fund the various programs of the government.

Brass of the Bureau of Internal Revenue from the Central Office and the
Regional Office in Calasiao, Pangasinan gathered recently at the multi-
purpose gym of the tax agency to award deserving taxpayers.
MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

Deputy Commissioner Nelson M. Aspe told businessmen here, during the recent tax campaign kicked off program’s dubbed “Angat pa ‘Pinas”, that the government has to sell sequestered assets from corrupt government officials, sell government buildings here and abroad, float government bonds and treasury bills to support its yearly expenses.
Aspe said that the BIR however had done a long stride in the last five years in terms of collection. He cited that five years ago the agency was targeting P750 billion tax collections compared to the P1.7 trillion it would be collecting this year.
He said the targets in that five years span were an average spike of 16% annually.
Because of the ballooning expenses of the government on infrastructure to pump prime the economy and its aggressive stance to invite local and foreign investors to provide jobs to its people, the Philippines was No.2 after Mainland China last year as the fastest growing economy.
The country and China have 6.1% and 7.4%, respectively, gross domestic product (GNP) last year. This year the country is poised to eclipse China as the fastest growing economy in the world.
Those who attended the kicked off program here was Aspe, Deputy Commissioner Celia C. King, Region -1 Regional Director Arnel SD. Guballa, Asst. Regional Dir. Eduardo L. Pagulayan, Revenue District Officer 4 Chief Renato Molina, RDO-4 Assistant Chief Charmaine C. dela Torre, RDO-6 Chief Nasrollah Conding, Assistant RDO-6 Chief Maria Bernadette Mangaoang, RDO-5 Chief Emir Abutzil other top brass and examiners of the four provinces strong BIR Region 1.

After the kicked off  here, many of the BIR's brass in Region 1 attended the ground breaking of the new building of RDO-6 in Urdaneta City.

The crowd and the brass of the BIR at the multi-purpose hall of the tax
agency in Calasiao, Pangasinan

Meanwhile, an official of the BIR Regional Office said that the tax target for this year assigned to the regional office here by the Department of Finance is more than P11 billion.
 Lee Caday, head of the Taxpayer Assistance Unit, said last year’s target was about P10 billion.
He was positive that the 2014 collection surpassed those in 2013 if based on the year-on-year basis.
Although the tax exception of a taxpayer has been hiked from P30,000 to P82,000, Caday said his office understood the dynamic of legislation in Congress in granting it.
“Ganoon na rin mangyayari pag nag legislate sila ng batas for the good of everybody kaya naghahanap rin kami ng paraan kung saan kami get other source”.
This year’s tax target, Caday continued, given to his office was 20% higher than the target in the preceding year.