Taxes collected by the Bureau of the Internal Revenue (BIR) that coursed through electronic payment channels have now accounted for more than four-fifths, the Department of Finance (DOF) announced.

Based on a report submitted by BIR Commissioner Caesar R. Dulay to the DOF, about P1.67 trillion or 86 percent of the tax agency’s total revenue haul last year had coursed through online platforms.

Of the P1.67 trillion collected through e-channels, P4.98 billion of the payments were from the additional digital system PayMaya.

Dulay also said that 21.5 million or 94 percent of the 22.86 million tax returns filed last year were done online, while only 1.38 million or six percent were filed manually.

In 2020, the BIR collections dropped by 11 percent to P1.94 trillion from P2.19 trillion in the previous year. However, the total tax haul is above the agency’s downgraded target for the year of P1.68 trillion.

According to Dulay, 4.37 million new business taxpayers were registered with the BIR in 2020, representing a 6.15-percent increase from the previous year’s of 4.11 million. 

Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the decrease in BIR collections last year was understandable, considering  the adverse economic impact of the pandemic and the contraction of the gross domestic product by about 10 percent that year. 

“Congratulations, Billy,” Dominguez said, referring to Dulay. “This coming year, I think, will be continuously challenging but I’m very happy the way BIR has responded to this crisis and had not given up.”

 “Basically, your collections went down almost exactly as the GDP contracted, around 10 percent. That's about right. In other words,  you haven’t let up on the pressure. The performance relative to 2019 is still the same even if the collections are lower,” he added. 

For 2021, Dulay is optimistic that the BIR “will do good based on the recent  announcement  by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) that we are on the road to economic recovery.”  

 “We will continue rowing and plowing and collecting these taxes,” Dulay said. 

The BIR’s tax effort of 10.67 percent in 2020 was only slightly lower by half a percent compared to 11.2 percent in 2019, Dulay said in his report.