The country’s finance chief has expressed optimism the government is on track to meet its revenue and tax effort goals for the year.
In the first half of the year, the government’s revenue effort rose to 16.7 percent of gross domestic product, which is higher than the full-year target of 15.2 percent, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno said during the Development Budget Coordination Committee briefing at the Senate yesterday.
The tax effort, meanwhile, stood at 14.9 percent in the first half of 2022, which is above the full-year target of 14.5 percent, “and is at par with our pre-pandemic performance,” Diokno said.
“Our latest fiscal ratios show that we are on track to achieving our revenue and tax effort targets for the year,” he added.
Diokno attributed the government’s “stellar collection performance” so far to the increased economic activity due to the full reopening of the economy, complemented by the digitalization of revenue agencies.
“With these revenue drivers in place, we expect our revenue collection to reach our P3.3 trillion target this year, which is 10 percent higher than in 2021, and it will exceed the pre-pandemic level of P3.1 trillion,” Diokno said.
According to the Bureau of the Treasury’s most recent cash operations report, the total revenue in July alone stood at P308.6 billion, outperforming the previous year’s actual collection by 20.53 percent.
The July outturn resulted in a higher cumulative revenue of P2 trillion compared to the end-July 2021 outcome of P1.7 trillion.
Of the total, 90 percent was raised through tax collections which recorded 15.82 percent growth year-over-year. Non-tax revenues, which comprised 10 percent, also grew by 23.61 percent. – Angela Celis
