Tax collections in the Philippines will not be effective unless the government and the succeeding administrations correct the obvious systemic flaws in the agencies and start catching the big fish.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III and Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon this week separately discussed government’s efforts to improve tax collections amid the state’s difficulty in meeting revenue targets. Dominguez gave marching orders to the heads of the two agencies to work closer together in catching more “big fish” who were cheating the government of billions of pesos in taxes.
Faeldon slammed unnamed politicians and some members of the Congress for influence peddling, saying they have contributed to corruption in Customs. Faeldon’s bombshell the other day is a truism in the agency, where influential persons, presidential relatives and politicians lobby for their protégés and choice assignments.
Customs, Faeldon noted, has allowed politicians and government officials to recommend their choice personnel, while claiming that some local government officials own importing or forwarding companies that deal with the agency.
Dominguez, meanwhile, wants to make an impact on the tax collection efforts of the government. Following the initial success of the Bureau of Internal Revenue in collaring Mighty Corp. for tax evasion, the finance chief wants the agency to go after other big tax cheats.
The government made a bonanza when Mighty offered P30 billion to settle its excise tax liabilities. “You better line up another big one. Next year, if possible, catch somebody, another big fish,” Dominguez told BIR commissioner Caesar Dulay and Faeldon at the recent Finance executive committee meeting.
Catching the big fish, however, is not an easy task and could be a complicated one. As Faeldon has correctly noted, the tax collections efforts of Customs could be deterred by some politicians or their business cronies who already have personnel or lookouts safely entrenched in the bureau.
