The Department of Finance (DOF) reported that as of end-September, the government’s revenue effort advanced to 14.7 percent compared to last year’s 14.5 percent during the same period.
The current deficit-to-GDP ratio is at 1.4 percent which is still way below the budgeted 2.6 percent for the full year. Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima credits the Aquino administration’s prudent fiscal management for this.
According to the Philippine Star, DOF data also showed that for the same period, the tax effort improved at 13.1 against last year’s 12.7 percent. For this, Purisima recognized the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) robust performance.
This improvement in revenue and tax efforts can be expected to consistently improve as both the BIR and Bureau of Customs continue to perform positively.
