MANILA: Import duties and taxes collected by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) jumped 18.7 percent to a monthly record high of P39.54 billion in September, missing its monthly target by a hairline. Last month’s cash collection was the highest achieved for a month and exceeded the collection of P33.3 billion in the same month last year, according to Customs commissioner Isidro Lapeña. “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 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 in 2010,” Lapeña said. Despite the record high collection in September, the nine-month tally of P324.84 billion was still below target. It was, however, 12.8 percent higher than the previous year’s collection of P287.9 billion. Lapeña said the bureau collected a record P3.31 billion on Sept. 28 and P3.19 billion on Sept. 30, the first time it breached the P3 billion level.
The BOC chief traced the improvement of the collection performance to the 20.92 percent increase in valuation compared to last year of the same period. The bureau was able to collect duties and taxes for September based on the total dutiable value of imports amounting to P420. 2 million compared to the assessed dutiable value of P347.5 million in the same month in 2016. Lapeña has called on all district collectors, examiners and appraisers to apply the correct valuation instead of using benchmarking. “We will try our best, and I am optimistic that we will be able to fully hit our target by year-end,” Lapeña said.
