BIR gets P30B from large taxpayers in March

The Bureau of Internal Revenue's tax take from the country's large taxpayers jumped 23.44 percent to P30.417 billion in March, agency officials said on Wednesday. BIR Assistant Commissioner Nestor Valeroso however said the result of collections of the Large Taxpayers Service are still preliminary and would go up as more taxes from large firms come in. The LTS has now under its fold 1,289 taxpayers with the additional of 289 new companies to beef up its share in the agency’s total tax take. With the higher collections from large taxpayers, total collections for March likely increased compared to the P43.75 billion tax take in the same month last year. The LTS accounts for about 65 percent of the agency’s total tax collections. The BIR is tasked to collect P765.9 billion this year or 17.5 percent higher than last year’s P651.9 billion. Despite a 20 percent increase, the agency missed its P675.4 billion goal last year by P23.5 billion due to declining inflation and interest rates as well as less issuance of government securities. However, the collections of the BIR declined by P239 million to P90.978 billion from January to February this year compared to P91.217 billion in the same period last year. Valeroso said the LTS has already undertaken definite action plans like meeting with the country's conglomerates in order to ensure that it meets this year's collection goal. “We are applying the persuasive approach to our taxpayers and we set our collection target for the industry based on the estimated revenue loss," he said. Likewise the LTS has also implemented a 24-hour surveillance of an identified large taxpayer engaged in manufacturing industry and is now conducting spot checking of big establishments and monitoring export transactions.-GMANews.TV