BIR urged to ‘go for gold’ in

exceeding tax collection goals

MANILA – Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has called on the Bureau of
Internal Revenue (BIR) to ‘go for the gold,’ like the extraordinary feat achieved by
Filipino gold medalist Hidilyn Diaz in the Tokyo Olympics, by surpassing its tax
collection targets for this year and beyond.

In his message on the BIR’s 117th anniversary on Monday, Dominguez

commended the agency under the leadership of Commissioner Caesar Dulay for
embarking on a comprehensive digitalization program ahead of the pandemic,
which enabled it to continue functioning effectively during the lockdowns and
collect almost all income taxes through electronic means.

Complemented by a relentless drive against tax cheats and an enhanced tax

amnesty program, Dominguez said the BIR’s digitalization initiatives helped prop
up the country’s fiscal position ahead of the pandemic, an unprecedented global
health and economic crises that subsequently forced the government to spend
big on coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) response.

Dominguez said the pandemic, which has proven to be a tough foe, will continue
to test the Philippines’ fiscal stamina as the government will be spending even
more to strengthen the healthcare system while funding long-term economic
investments and paying down the debt that the country has incurred to support
the national budget at this critical time.

“In other words, there is no room for our revenue efforts to fail. To win this battle
for our economic recovery, everything depends on the Bureau’s success in
raising much-needed revenues,” Dominguez said in his message during the BIR’s
anniversary program.

“Therefore, this is my marching order to the men and women of the Bureau of
Internal Revenue: go for the gold. I urge the agency to not just meet, but exceed
its collection targets this year and beyond,” he said.

Dominguez said that like how the Philippines’ sports hero Diaz had trained long
and hard for her Olympic victory, the government came fully prepared to meet
the global crisis head-on through years of fiscal discipline and prudence.

He said the Duterte administration’s tax reforms and improved tax

administration initiatives set the country on a stable fiscal footing before Covid-
19 struck last year and allowed the government to deploy all that was needed to
respond quickly to the pandemic.

“The economic downturn translates into decreased revenues. At the same time,
the emergence of a new Covid-19 variant means that the government needs to
spend more for public health, including the procurement of booster shots,”
Dominguez said.

Amid this protracted battle against the pandemic, Dominguez said he is

confident that the BIR’s dedicated workforce “will rise to the challenge and lift
our country to faster economic recovery.”

“The Bureau of Internal Revenue’s victory means a secure fiscal future for the
country and better economic outcomes for the Filipino people,” he said.

In the first half of 2021, the BIR collected PHP1.032 trillion, exceeding its mid-
year goal of PHP1.018 trillion set by the Development Budget Coordination
Committee (DBCC) by PHP14.12 billion.

For the entire year, the BIR is targeting to raise its tax collection by 6.7 percent
to PHP2.08 trillion from PHP1.95 trillion in 2020.

Its PHP1.95 trillion collection in 2020 was 16 percent over its revised goal of
PHP1.69 trillion. (PR)