MANILA — The Bureau of Customs (BOC) has posted more than P3 billion in collection for two consecutive days last month – a first in the bureau’s history.
Based on the preliminary collection report of its Financial Service, the BOC on Sept. 28 and 29 collected a total of P3,316,889,000 and P3,193,804,000, respectively.
BOC said the figures are a milestone in the collection performance history of the bureau, the country’s second largest revenue-generating agency.
Likewise, the BOC achieved a total cash collection of P39.54 billion in 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 to 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,” Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña said in a statement.
Lapeña attributed the improvement to a 20.92 percent increase in valuation compared to the same period last year.
The bureau, he said, 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 value of 84.5 percent from the 81.2 percent in 2016.
Lapeña has 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 percent in terms of volume of imports. In September 2016, there was a total of 8,504,422 kg. of imports while current volume posted amounted to 9,755,082 kg.
Preliminary collection report showed that despite the three non-working holidays in September, BOC achieved 96 percent of the total collection, collecting P40.15 billion against the monthly target of P41.75 billion based on the Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing (BESF) target.
It was previously reported that the BOC needs to achieve a monthly target of P50.1 billion from September to December for it to hit the full-year BESF target of PHP467.89 billion.
“We will try our best, and I am optimistic that we will be able to fully hit our target by year-end,” Lapeña added.
