The number of registered businesses with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) rose by 5.14 percent last year, according to a statement released by the Department of Finance (DOF) yesterday.
BIR Commissioner Caesar Dulay reported that 4.63 million business taxpayers were registered last year despite the pandemic, posting an increase from the previous year’s 4.41 million registered businesses.
The DOF said the heightened implementation of the BIR’s digitalization transformation programs, complemented by its growing workforce of young and skilled professionals, enabled the agency to steadily improve its collection performance and broaden the taxpayer base in 2021.
Carlos Dominguez, DOF secretary, congratulated the BIR for having “done a great job,” particularly in introducing digital technology, which he said helped continue the tax collection effort especially during the pandemic.
Since President Duterte took office, BIR’s collection steadily grew from P1.58 trillion in 2016 to P1.78 trillion and P1.96 trillion in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
The highest so far was in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, when collections amounted to P2.19 trillion, before dipping to P1.96 trillion at the height of the COVID-19 global outbreak in 2020 and climbing back to P2.08 trillion in 2021.
With the BIR expanding the use of digital payment channels to settle tax dues, about P1.75 trillion or 84 percent of the P2.08 trillion tax collection in 2021 was collected electronically, Dulay said.
The number of electronically filed tax returns of 23.78 million made up 93 percent of the 25.66 million filed returns in 2021, he added.
“We can attribute our improved performance to our digitalization transformation programs as well as to our increasing number of young workers who are quicker and more adept at learning digital skills,” Dulay said.
He said from 9,626 employees in 2016, the BIR was able to expand its workforce to its current personnel strength of 13,818 workers, of whom 6,540 or 44 percent were hired from 2016 to 2021, net of separations (retirement and resignations).
Meanwhile, Dulay also said in his report to Dominguez that since the Tax Amnesty Law took effect in 2018, the BIR was able to collect, as of June 2021, a total of P13.8 billion from 85,556 taxpayers that availed of the amnesty offered for tax on delinquencies and unsettled estate taxes.
