Taxes from SRP lot sales boost revenue collections

Cebu City South revenue district makes biggest collection of P3.46B

Taxes from the sale of two lots at the South Road Properties (SRP) caused a spike in revenue collections, allowing the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to exceed its target for September and for the first three quarters of the year.

A BIR report showed that the Cebu City South revenue district collected P3.46 billion in September alone, over 13 times more than the P233.6 million in September 2014 and nearly 10 times in excess of its monthly target.

The SRP, a 300-hectare reclaimed area that is being touted as the new growth area of Cebu City, is in the south district. The Cebu City government auctioned off two lots, which fetched a total price of about P17 billion. Capital gains and other taxes on the sale were shouldered by the buyers, namely, Filinvest Land and the consortium of SM Prime Holdings, Ayala Land and Cebu Holdings.

The September collection pulled up the bureau’s total revenue take in the first nine months of the year to P20.18 billion, about 30 percent more than the P15.62 billion collected a year ago and about 5 percent more than the P19.1-billion goal for the period.

Hermeno A. Palamine, regional director of BIR region 13 (Cebu and Bohol), said their surplus collection in September may be used to buffer possible shortfalls in the last three months of the year.

“The excess is very precarious. A lot can happen between October to December. There are months that we have big deficits,” he told reporters.

“We will try our best to make sure that we do not have deficits,” he added.

Palamine said their goal is to maintain their rank as number-one revenue region in terms of collection growth and goal attainment.

Last year, BIR-13 was one of only two revenue regions in the Philippines that were able to meet their collection targets. The other was BIR Caloocan.

Palamine was hopeful that any shortfall incurred in the last quarter would be less than P1 billion.

Because of the Cebu City South district collection, the bureau managed to exceed its 9-month target by about P1 billion or 5.62 percent. The annual target for this year is about P25 billion.

Cumulative collections from January to September in the other revenue districts showed growth compared with the 2014 level, but were still below target.

In September alone, all the revenue districts except Mandaue recorded increases in collections. Except for Cebu City South, all fell short of their respective targets.

The Cebu and Bohol revenue districts collected a total of P21.5 billion last year, surpassing their cumulative target by 3 percent.

Palamine said next year’s collection target will be higher.

“It grows year on year. If the districts cannot achieve their goals now, how much more when the targets increase?” he said.