By Chino S. Leyco

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), the government’s main tax agency, surpassed its target in the first two months of the year following the implementation of the first tax reform law.

Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said yesterday that the BIR collected P280.6 billion in January to February this year, higher by 17.5 percent against the P238.71-billion target for the period.

The end-February 2018 collections of the BIR also grew by 11 percent compared with P253.3 billion in the same period last year.

“In the first two months of this year since the TRAIN [tax reform for acceleration and inclusion] was passed, we are actually collecting more revenues than expected,” Dominguez said in his speech at the Inter-Pacific Bar Association Annual Meeting and Conference.

Dominguez also announced that revenue collections of the Bureau of Customs increased by more than a quarter to P85.63 billion in January to February from P66.8 billion in the previous year,

“We are confident the aggressive infrastructure build-up we initiated will be adequately funded,” Dominguez said.

For 2018, the government’s two main tax ageing are tasked to collect P2.642 trillion. Of that amount, the BIR is expected to raise P2.004 trillion, while the Customs bureau is seen to generate the remaining P637.08 billion.

The Department of Finance (DOF) said yesterday that the government’s ambitious infrastructure program will shift to high gear starting this year following the enactment of the first tax reform law.

Earlier, Dominguez said the government will rollout first set of big-ticket infrastructure projects this year under the Duterte administration’s so-called “Build, Build, Build” program.

Dominguez said the infrastructure projects will be funded by revenues from the TRAIN law as well as concessional financing packages from the Philippines’ development partners.

“I am sure the projects that have been planned for the DPWH [Department of Public Works and Highways] are going to go into high gear now that we have basically our capital already, our own funding for our portion of these projects,” Dominguez said.

“And I guess this will also encourage the multilateral agencies and the other funding agencies to increase their lending to us,” he added.

In particular, Dominguez said the government will implement the expansion of the Clark International Airport in Pampanga through the construction of a new and state-of-the-art passenger terminal.

The government will also implement the Philippine National Railway (PNR) North two project between Metro Manila and Clark airport.

There is also the PNR South Commuter Rail in Los Banos, Laguna, which is set to start later this year.

Finance Undersecretary Gil S. Beltran earlier said that the government lined-up 75 flagship projects under the “Build, Build, Build” program worth P1.8 trillion, majority of which is already in the construction or pre-construction phases.

Among these big-ticket projects are the P23-billion Metro Manila Flood Management Project, which is co-funded by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the World Bank.

Another is the P355.6-billion Mega Manila Subway funded by official development assistance (ODA) from Japan, Beltran said.

Dominguez added the P19.8-billion Davao City Bypass Road as another flagship project that is also under the implementation phase.

“Let me just point out that our debt as a percentage of our GDP [gross domestic product] has been on a steady decline. When we took over, it was something like 43 percent,” Dominguez said.

“Even though we borrowed more during the interim from when the time this new administration took over, the debt as a percentage of GDP is now just slightly over 41 percent. And we can see that declining over the years,” he added.