The Bureau of Internal Revenue District 79 based in Dumaguete City vowed to seriously implement tax laws, to meet the funding requirement of proposed plans and programs President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo mentioned in her recent state of the nation address.

Revenue district officer-in-charge Arturo Acabal said that of the P1 trillion requirement, P730 billion will be collected by the BIR, P200 billion by the Bureau of Customs and the rest by other government agencies. Acabal said the BIR is focusing weak areas in tax administration, including the implementation of the value added tax, due to loopholes with the removal of the 70 percent limitation provision.

It is also seriously collecting the two percent excise tax on sand and gravel, and quarry operations, which has been devolved to local district offices, he added.

The Oriental Negros and Siquijor provincial governments are now obliged to furnish the BIR office with the list of permittees which will form as basis in the collection of the 2 percent excise tax, Acabal added.

He said another weak area in tax administration that BIR intends to implement is the percentage tax and document tax on insurance companies, capital gains stocks on real property transactions and income tax on individuals engaged in business.

Acabal pointed out that many self-employed individuals including professionals are not filing their tax returns with BIR, as noted during their recent tax mapping operations.

All these years, the Dumaguete BIR had surpassed its annual target collection due to the cooperation of taxpayers, he said, referring to the P1,005,000 collection this year, from the P830 million target.

From January to June this year, the BIR had collected P418 million compared to P357.7 million of the same period last year, he said. He added that for the month of June alone, the revenue district has collected P76.6 million compared to P52.6 million in June last year.*JG

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