Have you ever thought about the cost efficiency of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in generating revenue for the government? It only takes 52 centavos to generate P100.

During a recent event celebrating the BIR's anniversary, Finance Secretary Ralph G. Recto highlighted the importance of the tax bureau, which contributes around 70 percent of the national government's annual income.

To put it simply, Recto explains that the BIR needs to collect P8.2 billion daily, equivalent to P342.5 million per hour.

Recto then shared an interesting statistic: the average annual revenue collection per BIR employee is P191.5 million.

This amount is way higher than the yearly salary of the highest-paid BIR employee, the commissioner, who earns around P2.5 million at salary grade 30.

Interestingly, BIR Commissioner Romeo D. Lumagui Jr.'s annual earnings make up only 1.3 percent of the per capita collection target for his employees.

“Kaya kung tutuusin natin, sulit na sulit ang budget ng BIR na P15 billion ngayong taon para sa P3.05 trillion na koleksyon,” Recto said.

[If we were to consider it, the budget of the BIR at P15 billion this year is very much worth it for the P3.05 trillion collection.]

Meanwhile, Recto has still reminded the BIR that revenue collections must see sustained improvements through digitalization in order to help the government meet the people’s needs and further grow the economy.

“When revenue improvement is sustained, the needs of the people are met. This makes possible investments that spur economic growth, which in turn, creates jobs, improves income, and increases our people’s capacity to pay taxes. This is the virtuous cycle we are championing,” Recto said.

The finance chief reiterated his call to leverage digitalization to promote the ease of paying taxes, citing the BIR’s Digital Roadmap for 2024-2028 as a guide on how to achieve their goal.

“I am sticking to my guns that more revenues can be raised by simplifying, shortening, streamlining, and speeding up the process, without leaving the government shortchanged, than a slew of higher, newer tax laws,” he said.

Recto asserted that information technology should be deployed as liberation technology that makes the life of taxpayers easier, as complex payment processes discourage tax obedience.

Which is why he encouraged the BIR to keep up its digitalization initiatives and implement the Online Registration Update System; the Optimized Knowledge Management for Chatbot Review; and the Electronic One-Time Transaction System, among others to prove its capabilities in ICT infrastructure.

Apart from these, the finance chief stressed the importance of stronger coordination between government agencies through data-sharing to create a united front in plugging tax leakages and loopholes.

The recently established Swift Corporate and Other Records Exchange (SCORE) Protocol––a pilot project of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the BIR, allows the swift sharing of data and empowers the Bureau to harmonize records of registered corporations to enhance tax collection efficiency.