Income tax collection falls short of target

MANILA, Philippines - The government’s income tax collection from both corporate and individual taxpayers fell short of target in the nine months through September this year.

Data from the Department of Finance showed that revenues from corporate and individual income taxes reached P585.58 billion, 8.7 percent below the P641.32 billion target for the nine month period.  The amount, however, was six percent higher than the P538.98 billion collected the previous year.

Tax revenues from corporate enterprises amounted to P141.8 billion, short of the P155.82 billion goal from January to September. It, however, represented an increase of 7.29 percent from the P132.16 billion collection in the same period a year ago.

Taxes from personal income totaled P12.48 billion or almost the same level as last year.  The amount was below the P15.16 billion target for the period.

Withholding tax amounted to P171.33 billion, up 16.41 percent from P147.18 a year before.

Meanwhile, capital gains tax stood at P8.96 billion, slightly higher than the previous year’s collection of P8.44 billion.

For the whole of 2014, the government expects taxes on corporate and personal income to grow 19.5 percent to P975.5 billion. Of the total, P370 billion would come from individual taxpayers while P695.5 billion would come from corporations.

In 2013, government’s share from personal income reached P252.6 billion and P418.4 billion in taxes from corporations’ profit.