The Bureau of Internal Revenue, said on yesterday it exceeded by 4.8 percent its internal collections target from large corporate taxpayers last month.

The Bureau, which accounts for around two thirds of government revenues, is under pressure to improve collections and crack down on widespread evasion after it missed it target last year by around 7 percent, forcing Manila to rely on privatization proceeds to squeeze the budget deficit.

The agency collected P32.06 billion ($783 million) from large taxpayers against an internal target of P30.6 billion in January, it said in a statement.

The January revenues from large taxpayers were also 13.8 percent higher than in the same month of 2007.

Large taxpayers account for about 60 percent of the total collections of the tax bureau.

It said it has intensified monitoring of tax payments and auditing of tax returns, among other initiatives, to ensure that it meets its 2008 collections target of about P845 billion.

The Philippines recorded a budget deficit of P9.4 billion in 2007, a fraction of the target shortfall of P63 billion and the smallest deficit in a decade with the help of asset sales, which brought more than P90 billion.

Excluding the one-off privatization proceeds, the Philippines would have had a budget deficit of P100 billion last year.

This year, the Southeast Asian nation wants to boost revenues to balance its budget for the first time in more than a decade and ensure it has funding for large infrastructure projects aimed at supporting economic growth. - Reuters