FIVE of the six revenue district offices in Eastern Visayas have failed to hit the tax collection target for the first eight months of 2011 with a combined deficit of P354.12 million.
With this shortfall incurred from January to August 2011, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) is pessimistic to hit the P4.3 billion 2011 goal.
Lawyer Diosdado Mendoza, BIR regional director for Eastern Visayas, said that during the period, their office was able to generate P2.52 billion or 12.28 percent lower than the P2.88 billion goal for the year.
Of the six revenue district offices in the region, only the field office in Borongan City noted an excess as of August with revenue of P209.16 million, 11.42 percent up than the target.
The Tacloban City revenue office, which covers northern Leyte area and Biliran province, noted the highest shortfall percentage with a collection of P1.10 billion or 17.87 percent deficit.
Other BIR field offices that registered lower collection (with corresponding percentage shortfall) are Catarman, Northern Samar with P191.79 million (10.68 percent); Catbalogan City with P318.90 million (15.05 percent); Ormoc City with P483.25 million (5.41 percent); and Maasin City with P219.40 million (11.23 percent).
“From January up to August, we incurred more than P300 million deficits. It might be a miracle to attain the target but we are trying our best to narrow down the deficit to a single digit figure,” Mendoza told reporters.
Arsenia Gente, chief of BIR collection division, said that during the consultative meetings conducted by BIR with the business community, they were able to find out reasons for slowdown in business activities.
“Contributing to the slowdown is the entry of big companies registered outside Eastern Visayas like Robinsons Place and Gaisano Central Mall.
These firms are not paying their income and business taxes locally, yet they take up large chunks of sales to the detriment of local small businesses,” Gente said.
Other economic factor is that big companies buy in bulk or volumes of merchandise at big discounts from Metro Manila, which they later re-sell at lower prices here compared to that of locally registered businesses.
"The presence of big businesses not registered within the region may ultimately cause the closing down of small local businesses and may concomitantly cause the gradual decline of the region's tax collection," Gente added. (Leyte Samar Daily Express)
