BOC to push government target achievement this year– Diokno

DEPARTMENT of Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno expressed confidence the government would be able to not only meet, but even overshoot, its revenue target for 2022, relying mainly on the very impressive revenue collection of the Bureau of Customs (BOC), the country’ second highest revenue agency after the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR)

At a media forum in Manila on Wednesday, November 30, 2022, Diokno said he is also confident that the expected surplus by the BOC as the year ends would “definitely” cover any shortfall by the BIR.

As of November 11, 2022, BOC Commissioner Filemon Yogi Ruiz reported his agency had already surpassed by some 3.27 percent or P23.98 billion, its assigned target of P721.52 billion by clocking actual collection of P745.50 billion.

Combined with the BOC’s aggregate target collection for November and December of P118.73 billion that is already classified surplus collection and which the bureau is also expected to meet, the agency is poised to collect more than P850 billion in a single year, a collection legacy that would be hard to equal in the coming years.

Although already impressive, Ruiz, in previous interviews, said he has set an “internal target” of P1 trillion or near this amount for the BOC by the end of the year.

He also attributed his agency’s impressive performance to stringent implementation of priority programs to curb smuggling and corruption, optimize revenue collection, and digitalize and enhance customs operations “anchored on the eight-point Socioeconomic Agenda of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.”

On the other hand, the BIR was assigned the task of collecting P2.4 trillion, of which it had already collected some P1.9 trillion, or about 80 percent of its target, Diokno reported.

The government’s revenue goal, meanwhile, is P3.3 trillion.

Quoting from the October figures, Diokno said overall tax collectionj has already reached P2.9 trillion, which is 18 percent higher than last year and about 90 percent of the annual target.

The finance secretary also bared that the country’s economic managers represented at the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBBC) is set to meet this December 5, 2022, to review the government’s macroeconomic targets for the coming year.

“We will review the numbers and maybe we can upgrade the forecast, but we will just affirm the 6.5 to 8 percent (growth target) for next year,” he said.

The economy as measured by GDP, or the total value of goods and services produced, grew by 7.6 period during the second quarter, the start of the Marcos administration, one percentage point higher than its projected growth.

The DBCC has set a GDP growth target of 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent for 2022 and 6.5 percent to 8 percent for next year.