The government’s two main tax agencies secured more than a quarter of the Marcos administration’s budget for information and communications technology (ICT) next year, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said.
Budget Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman said on Wednesday, Aug. 31, that the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Bureau of Customs will receive P3.56 billion in 2023 to fund their digital transformation programs.
Pangandaman said that the budget for the BIR and Customs’ digitalization efforts is equivalent to 28.6 percent of DBM’s P12.4 billion proposed budget for ICT projects throughout the bureaucracy.
“We will prioritize digitalization and accelerate digitalization transformation... the improvement of revenue collection through digitalization will also be a priority,” Pangandaman said.
Under the 2023 proposed national budget, the Department of Information and Communications Technology will get biggest chunk of next year’s ICT funds with P4.24 billion, or 34 percent of the total P12.4 billion.
The larger ICT funds for the BIR and Customs come as Finance Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno vowed to ramp up the tax agencies respective anti-corruption campaigns by modernizing their operations through digitalization.
Diokno pointed out that digitalization is the key in transforming and eradicating corruption within the two tax bureaus.
The Digital Transformation (DX) Program of the BIR aims to transform the bureau into a data-driven organization through a digitally-empowered workforce capable of harnessing digital technologies to improve BIR services and enhance taxpayer experience.
In 2021, 93 percent of returns were filed electronically, and taxpayers were offered more convenient ways to pay taxes as BIR services were made available 24/7.
Aside from digital transformation, BIR Commissioner Lilia Guillermo is also pushing for moral transformation within the organization through value-formation courses.
Over at the Customs, Deputy Commissioner Edward James Dy Buco noted that the agency was one of the first government agencies to implement paperless transactions.
The World Bank is currently supporting the digitalization of the Customs through a $88.28 million financing for the Philippine Customs Modernization Program.
The project focuses on transitioning from a largely manual and paper-based organization to a modernized Customs, achieving global standards and full modernization by 2024.
Buco told senators that 91.18 percent or 155 out of 170 customs processes are already automated.
Last March 1, the Customs, in coordination with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), also completed a national action plan for cross-border paperless trade.
In addition, the Customs has enrolled in various integrity enhancement and moral transformation programs, according to Buco.
In its intensified campaign against corruption, the Customs has transferred 3,855 employees, served show-cause orders to 1,407 personnel, filed 183 administrative cases, transmitted 164 complaints to the Office of the Ombudsman, relieved 192 employees, and dismissed 24 from the service.
With their extensive digitalization programs under the previous administration, the BIR and Customs were able to sustain their operations throughout the pandemic and even exceeded their collection targets.
The BIR, for instance, generated a total of P2.1 trillion in 2021, which is P5.1 billion higher than its target for the year.
In the same year, the Customs collected P643.56 billion, or 104.3 percent of its target P616.75 billion collection.