Excise tax collection up 9.6% in H1
Excise taxes collected from "sin" products, fuel and automobiles climbed 9.6 percent to P32.284 billion during the first six months of the year, an increase of P2.838 billion from the P29.446 billion collected in the same period last year, treasury data showed.
In June, excise tax collection increased to P6.010 billion from the P4.969 billion recorded in the same month last year or an expansion of P1.041 billion.
The excise tax collection in June was the highest for the six-month period.
In May, excise tax revenues stood at P5.042 billion. The lowest collection was recorded in March at P4.472 billion.
The first half excise tax collection is more than half the full year target of P61.7 billion.
Alcohol and tobacco products are the two biggest excise tax revenue sources.
Last year, the collection target for excise taxes was P60.5 billion.
An excise tax is an inland tax on the production for sale or sale of specific goods.
The government hopes to collect more excise tax from alcohol at P22.3 billion this year, from P20.6 billion in 2009. Excise tax from tobacco is pegged at P35.4 billion, from P24.2 billion a year ago.
Excise tax from automobiles is likewise expected to slightly climb to P2.14 billion this year from P2.02 billion while excise from fuel is seen to drop 14.9 percent to P10.8 billion from last year’s P12.7 billion.
The government is hard-pressed to shore up revenues in the remaining six months of the year to plug a record breaking programmed deficit of P325 billion or 3.9 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) from the Arroyo-pegged deficit goal of P293 billion, which was later revised to P300 billion.
The new government seeks to improve its tax effort from the current level of 12.8 percent to the Asian average of 16 percent during its first three years in power. This year’s tax effort goal is 13.8 percent.
The Aquino government said about $4.5 billion to $5 billion in revenues or 3 percent of GDP is lost yearly due to lower tax effort.
The last time the country came at par with the Asian average tax effort was in 1997 when the government posted 17 percent.
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