Self-employed, professionals boost 2011 tax take

THE Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) program to run after self-employed and professional tax-evaders has resulted to an increase in its tax collections in 2011.

According to BIR Commissioner Kim-Jacinto Henares, tax collected from self-employed individuals and professionals in 2011 increased by 37.8 percent to P10.19 billion last year from P7.39 billion in 2010.

“There is still a huge room for growth. Compliance among professionals and the self-employed is still nowhere near where it should be,” she said, adding that the publicized filing against tax evaders was working.

A study by the National Tax Research Center found that salaried Filipinos paid 6 percent of their income as tax on average, as against only 1 percent for self-employed and professionals. Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima recently directed BIR to raise the average tax from self-employed and professionals.

The BIR, which accounts for two-thirds of state revenues, is tasked to raise P1.066 trillion this year to help cap the national government budget deficit at P279 billion.

The BIR is mulling mulls to intensify its program to run after minimal taxpayers by sending more personnel who would pose as clients of self-employed individuals and professionals, and identify those who fail to issue receipts.

As of June this year, the BIR’s Run After Tax Evaders Program resulted to the filing of a total of 111 tax evasion cases worth a combined P39.73 billion since the start of the Aquino administration.

The Department of Justice had resolved 26 of these cases, with 14 filed in court. Another 52 cases had been submitted for resolution in various courts. In the first six months of this year, the bureau raised P521.159 billion, or 14 percent short of its P535.357-billion target for the period. –RAFFY AYENG REPORTER, Manila Times