The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) expects its 2024 collections to surpass the P2.848 trillion target set by the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC), saying the actual collection numbers were still being finalized even as the preliminary figures were yet to be disclosed.
“The exact figures will be finalized by around mid-February, and by then, the collection figures will only increase past the DBCC target,” BIR Commissioner Romeo D. Lumagui Jr. said in a statement released on Tuesday.
In the bureau’s cash operations report released late last month, the BIR said it had officially collected P2.7 trillion as of end-November 2024, recording a 13.88 percent improvement from the previous year, or equivalent to 93.64 percent of the P2.8 trillion 2024 revised program.
With the exception of the pandemic year when the target was substantially lowered, this would be the first time in two decades the BIR would have achieved its goal.
Based on the 2024 Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing (BESF), the BIR was originally tasked to collect P3.05 trillion for the year.
“I think they’ll end up (with) P2.85 trillion, more or less, give or take a few billion pesos,” Finance Secretary Ralph Recto told reporters last month. “It’s still double-digit growth and the reasons for that are one, remember (that under the) BESF, there are tax measures that were supposed to be passed but were not taxed into law. So naturally we won’t be collecting taxes from the tax laws that were not passed. And of course the lower GDP growth rate,” he added.
The BIR is expected to beat its emerging target even as the country’s gross domestic product grew by a weaker-than-expected 5.2 percent in the third quarter, slowing from the revised 6.4 percent growth posted in the second quarter and 6 percent a year earlier.
Based on previous reports, the bureau said it had been active in enforcement activities, such as in its fight against ghost receipts and illicit vape products.
Lumagui said the agency has also been working on improving its digitalization initiatives to provide better taxpayer service.