The Bureau of Customs (BOC) posted more than P3 billion in collection for two consecutive days of the previous month based on the Financial Service’s preliminary collection report – a first in the history of the agency.
Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapena said that on September 28 and 29, the BOC collected a total of P3, 316.889 and P3, 193,804 respectively. This 3-billion figure is the first in the collection performance history of the bureau, the country’s second largest revenue generating agency.
The BOC also achieved a total cash collection of P39.545 billion for September, regarded also as the highest cash collection achieved for a month based on records.
“The Bureau is happy to report that we were able to make significant improvements in terms of collection. We were looking at the financial reports dating back 2010, and our director for financial service, Cecile Soriano reported that indeed this is the first in BOC history, even if we reviewed records farther back 2010.”
According to customs chief, the improvement of the collection performance is attributed to 20.92 percent increase in valuation compared to last year of the same period.
The bureau was able to collect duties and taxes for September based on the total dutiable value of imports amounting to P420, 204, 629 compared to the assessed dutiable value of P347, 504,895 of the same month in 2016, despite the higher percentage of non-dutiable of 84.5% from the 81.2% in 2016.
It may be recalled that Lapena called on all district collectors, examiners and appraisers to apply the correct valuation instead of using benchmarking.
September figures also indicate a year-on-year increase of 14.71% in terms of volume of imports. In September 2016, there was a total of 8,504,422 kilograms of imports while current volume posted 9,755,082 kilograms.
In the past, there were monthly collections higher than P39.545 but those are total collections that include the tax expenditure fund (TEF).
TEF is the revenue collected from government importations and are not paid in actual cash by the agencies but instead credited by the BOC from the agencies’ budget.
Preliminary collection report showed that despite the three (3) non-working holidays in September, BOC achieved 96% percent of the total collection, collecting P40.150 billion against the monthly target of P41.753 billion based on Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing (BESF) target.
It was previously reported that the BOC needs to achieve the monthly target of P50.1 billion from September to December in order to hit the full year BESF target of P467.896.
“We will try our best, and I am optimistic that we will be able to fully hit our target by year-end,” Lapena adds.
