MANILA: Customs collection fell for the fourth straight month in October, pulled down by lower prices of petroleum products.
Preliminary data from the Bureau of Customs showed import tariff collection fell 0.7 percent in October to P31.8 billion from P34.2 billion in the same month last year. It also dropped from P32.65 billion collected in September.
The bureau said actual collection in October also missed the P42.9-billion target for the month by 26 percent.
The figure brought total collection by the agency, which accounts for about a fifth of government revenues, to P299 billion in the first 10 months, or 57 billion short of the P355.95-billion target for the period.
Customs Commissioner Alberto Lina earlier said the government lost between P50 billion and P75 billion in tariff collections from oil imports this year because of weak crude prices.
The Dubai crude price, the benchmark for the Philippines, fell below $50 a barrel this year from around $100 a barrel last year. Taxes from oil products represent about 30 percent of the bureau’s collection.
Lina said 12 of the 17 ports did not meet their collection targets as of the third week of October.
Port of Manila fell 30 percent short of target while Port of Batangas was 22-percent behind target.
“Year to date, San Fernando is 30-percent behind target and Limay at 50 percent, but we expect a significant increase on this from the ongoing influx of shipments for the holidays,” Lina said.
“More stringent valuation should be imposed to help in the revenue collection. We are closely monitoring valuation on oil, steel and rice,” he said.
Lina said the bureau was looking at speeding up public auction of forfeited goods to ease the collection burden of weak oil prices.
He said in the first eight months of the year, Manila International Container Port posted P333 million from auctioned goods.
Latest customs data showed that 809 containers that could neither be sold through public bidding nor donated to the Social Welfare went through public auction.
“Preliminary figures for October is looking up, so we will strengthen efforts to meet targets by the end of the year,” he said.
Lina earlier conceded that hitting the government’s customs collection target of more than P400 billion for 2015 would not likely be met.
Lina said raising between P390 billion and P400 billion was “doable”.
“I am okay with the P400 billion, but it if it will be higher than that, then, that would be better,” he said.
This is below the P436.6-billion goal set by the inter-agency Development and Budget Coordination Committee.
