The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) likely missed its collection target for 2008 by a new high of about P60 billion due to the weak economy and the implementation of a tax relief aimed at cushioning the impact of the global financial crisis.

BIR Deputy Commissioner for operations Nelson Aspe said the agency probably missed its target of P845 billion last year after it fell short of its monthly collection goal for the month of December. The 2008 goal was 18.4 percent higher than the P713.6 billion recorded in 2007.

Aspe pointed out that preliminary figures showed that the agency only managed to collect between P53 billion and P54 billion last month or P16 billion to P17 billion short of its P70 billion aim.

The estimated collection shortfall of P60 billion means the BIR generated P785 billion in taxes for 2008 or only 10 percent higher than the year before. This is lower than the revised assessment made by the Finance Department, which expected the agency to collect P810 billion or about P35 billion short of the programmed collection.

For 2009, the BIR is tasked to collect P968.3 billion or 14.6 percent higher than the programmed collection of P845 billion for 2008. However, the finance department sees the agency collecting only P915 billion this year due to the economic slowdown.

The government earlier scaled down its 2008 growth projection for the domestic economy, as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP), to 4.1-4.8 percent from the original 6.3-7.0 percent.

It also decided to abandon its commitment to balance the budget and postpone fiscal consolidation back to the original 2010 schedule due to adverse external developments brought about by high oil and food prices.

The government is staring at a wider deficit of P102 billion or 1.2 percent of GDP this year from the projected P75 billion or 1.0 percent of GDP last year.