BAGUIO CITY - The Bureau of Internal Revenue-Cordillera (BIR -CAR) landed at top ten tax collection agencies with the highest collection in 2021, surpassing its target by more than P400 million.
"We are happy and the agency is proud that we are among the Top Ten nationwide with a high collection and even exceeded the target in 2021,” said Douglas Rufino, regional director of BIR-Cordillera.
“Despite the pandemic we have not neglected to take care of our collection throughout the region," he added.
According to Rufino, their target collection for 2021 was P5.5 billion, but due to the diligence of each province, the region was able to collect a total of P5.9 billion in taxes.
Rufino said the cooperation between the agency and the taxpayers is the reason for careful collection.
From 2021 record, Mountain Province, which is also a favorite destination of local and foreign tourists with its attraction in Sagada, has contributed 7.07%, followed by Baguio City, the center of business, commerce, and education not only in the region but in the northern Luzon.
Baguio, the seat of government of the Cordillera Administrative Region, has contributed 6.77 in the total collection.
Abra contributed 6.9%, Benguet 5.5%, Kalinga-Apayao, 5.59% and Ifugao 4.13%.
The collection is excise tax, income tax, value-added tax, percentage tax, and other taxes, of which income tax accounts for the majority of the collection.
"Although the target collection from excise, percentage, and other taxes is low, due to the gradual opening of the tourism industry which mostly closed due to the pandemic, we still got the collection even though it was low," said Rufino.
On record, collection from excise tax in 2021 showed a negative 10.4% deficit; negative 19.10% for tax percentage and negative 15.95%.
Rufino said the collection from Baguio City is more than 70 percent of the region’s total collection. Baguio has collected P2.93 billion from its collection target of P2.85 billion in 2021.
An excess collection was also posted in 2020 when the region got P470 million more or 8.51 per cent higher than its target.
In 2022, the agency targets P7.1 billion in tax collection in the region and in the past four months alone, they had already collected P2.38 billion.