Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has commended the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) for collecting P1.96 trillion in 2018, which is higher by 10.15 percent than its 2017 collections, as he expressed confidence that the array of tax administration reforms being undertaken by the agency would let it achieve an even better attainment rate this year and onwards.

The Bureau’s improving collections, Dominguez said, are the result of several administrative reforms that it is “relentlessly pursuing,” among them, 1) the expansion of available electronic payment options for taxpayers; 2) Run After Tax Evaders (RATE) campaign; 3) Oplan Kandado campaign, which allows it to suspend or shut down businesses for non-tax compliance, 4) and broadening the tax base, which increased the number of active registered business taxpayers by 10.55 percent last year.

Dominguez said, though, that the best way to further improve the agency’s performance and collect the right amount of taxes is the voluntary compliance of the country’s taxpayers.

“This is the reason we launch this tax awareness campaign every year. We expect taxpayers to pay their taxes promptly and properly in the same way that they expect us to spend every peso that the Bureau collects in investments that would help make growth truly inclusive for every Filipino,” Dominguez said on Friday at the kickoff of the BIR’s awareness drive at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City.

Dominguez told the BIR’s rank-and-file that Filipino taxpayers have “entrusted in us not only their hard-earned money, but their hopes for a better and more vibrant economy.”

The National Tax Campaign Kickoff was led by Dominguez and BIR Commissioner Caesar Dulay. Among the other officials present were Finance Undersecretaries Antonette Tionko and Mark Dennis Joven. Leading members of the business community were also at the event, among them, Ramon Ang, president and CEO of San Miguel Corporation; and Michael Tan, president and CEO of the LT Group, Inc.

Dominguez said this BIR campaign “is about building a strong partnership with our taxpayers.”

“Ours is a shared responsibility for building a society that will thrive in a competitive world,” the Finance chief said. “We, whose responsibility is to produce the revenue stream to fund the government’s massive infrastructure program and investments in human capital development, play a key role in our people’s economic success. I urge you to sustain the effort at completely modernizing tax administration in this country. I trust we will deliver, and we will deliver well.”

In demonstrating its resolve to run after tax cheats, Dominguez recalled that the BIR, along with the Bureau of Customs (BOC), was able to bust the “biggest fish” by cracking down on Mighty Corp. in 2017. The BIR-BOC joint drive resulted in the largest tax settlement in the country’s tax history and forced the company out of the cigarette business.

Today, the BIR continues to heighten its vigilance against illicit trade and manufacturing by forming a Strike Team to accomplish this mission, he said.

This team has so far confiscated several unregistered cigarette-making machines and various brands of fake and untaxed tobacco products from illegally operating factories in Pampanga, Pangasinan and Bulacan, which were later destroyed to send the message that tax evaders and illicit cigarette manufacturing will not be tolerated by this administration.

Dominguez said the BIR has also been “effectively implementing” a Centralized Arrears Management system, which provides re-engineered processes for managing both accounts receivable and delinquent accounts to help boost the agency’s performance in its regional offices.

In the future, Dominguez said the BIR will also be implementing the following: 1) a “seamless and instantaneous” fully electronic payments system as provided under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law; 2) an enhanced value-added tax (VAT) refund system that will enable the settlement of claims within a 90-day period; 3) creation of Fast Lanes for simple transactions and other initiatives to improve taxpayer satisfaction in compliance with the Ease of Doing Business or EODB Law; 4) fuel marking and testing program to plug value-added tax (VAT) collection leakages from petroleum products; 5) computer-aided Cash-Register Machines and Point-of-Sale (POS) Evaluation System; and 6) e-invoicing and e-receipts system.

“Fortunately, technology is on our side and we will take full advantage of new hardware and software to make our operations more efficient,” he said.

Dominguez said that in this year’s tax campaign, he expects the BIR and the Department of Finance (DOF) to deliver the message to taxpayers that prompt and proper tax payments is not just their duty but their role as partners in building a beneficial future for our children.

The BIR, he said, must be able to link tax collection with the strategic investments now being made by the government “to ensure our economic growth is both sustainable and inclusive.”

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