MANILA - The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) would have a hard time in meeting its target collection for the year as a result of the slowing down of operations of most businesses in the country, an agency official admitted.

Elenita Quimosing, chief of staff of the BIR’s operation group, said the target collection of P798 billion for 2009 is hard to achieve for most revenue regions because the Philippine economy is slowing down following the global trend.

“Everybody is so worried that the target will not be met by the end of the year,” Quimosing said at the sidelines of a tax seminar organized by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

She said, however, that a command conference in Clark Field, Pampanga, on Thursday and Friday was meant to discuss the basis of the decline in the agency’s collection for August.

“If you can explain where the shortage came from, there’s no problem. There are no hard and fast rules in these matters,” she said.

When asked if BIR Commissioner Sixto Esquivias IV will again shuffle his key officials by next month, Quimosing said it’s up to the Department of Finance and BIR top officials to decide on the issue.

The BIR is set to assess the performance of its key officials in the past 2 quarters. One of the main indicators is the number of companies a revenue district office has shut down during the period.

Quimosing said, however, that the bureau is intensifying its other programs to help the agency collect more once the Philippine economy starts to grow, including the auditing of the transactions of small and bigger firms.

Esquivias earlier said they are now looking at interrelated transactions of four groups of companies. He also formed a group that will look into the transactions of oil firms, including the country’s three largest—Petron Corp., Pilipinas Shell and Chevron Corp.

Last year the BIR issued Revenue Memorandum Order 24-2008 to lay down the policies and guidelines for the development, investigation and prosecution of cases under the Run After Tax Evaders (RATE) program.

With the program, the BIR is mandated to investigate criminal violations of the Tax Code and assist in the prosecution of criminal cases that will generate the maximum deterrent effect, enhance voluntary compliance and promote public confidence in the tax system.

The BIR’s National Investigation Division and Policy Cases Division would undertake the investigation of RATE cases in the BIR national office, while the Special Investigation Division of each revenue region will investigate the RATE cases in the regional offices.

The RATE program, however, took the back seat when Esquivias was appointed to the top BIR post last year after he decided that the Oplan Kandado program would be more effective to instill fear among tax evaders.

Under Oplan Kandado, companies whose underdeclaration in sales and value-added tax returns exceeds 30% will be closed down.

On the other hand, the BIR is also increasing the penalties for those who failed to submit on time the quarterly Summary List of Sales and Purchases, in a move to force smaller operators to be compliant.

“If these efforts are done simultaneously and then add the [additional penalties on] SLSP, it will result in more voluntary compliances [among the companies],” Esquivias earlier said.

A recent BIR study showed that compliance of firms on the submission of SLSPs was less than 30% of the registered VAT remitters.