Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner Kim Jacinto-Henares is confident her agency can meet the full year tax collection target of P1.066 trillion set by the national government because majority of Filipinos, including companies, are now religiously paying taxes.
The BIR has an appetite to predict it can meet its target after exceeding its June collection by 7.88 percent, collecting P81.34 billion for that month.
The amount was up by P5.94 billion from P75.4 billion the previous month.
The June tax collection was also 21.58 percent or P14.44 billion higher than the collections a year earlier.
“Am still out of the country. As far as I’m concerned, we can make it because most Filipinos have now learned (to pay tax honestly),” Henares, whose firing instructor was President Aquino, said.
The Tribune learned that for the first five months of 2012, the BIR’s collection rose by 12.6 percent to P440.61 billion from P391.09 during the same period last year.
The target was short of the five-month target of P459.95 billion.
The BIR noted tax collections from its regional offices continued to show double-digit growth, rising by 20.39 percent.
In May, regional offices collected P9.09 billion, 24.2 percent higher versus the same month last year.
“If we are able to collect more than the target, government doesn’t need to borrow a lot,” she told The Tribune.
The commissioner said the relentless campaign against dishonest taxpayers will continue.
She said more people and companies have now became honest when it comes to paying taxes because they know the repercussions of falsifying tax sheets.
“Our institutions are working very hard and there will be no respite in that campaign,” she said.    
Since becoming commissioner in July 2010, Henares and her men have so far sued around four dozen individuals.
Among those the BIR sued for non-declaration and mis-declaration of tax obligations include Carlo Caparas, John Lloyd Cruz, Diaina Meneses, Judy Ann Santos and the owner of Villarica Pawnshop.
None among those criminally charged have been sent to jail.