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A P2.6-billion budget was allocated to the Bureau of Customs (BOC) under the 2021 General Appropriations Act
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BOC expected to grow revenue collection by 11.6% and collect duties and taxes amounting to P695 billion
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Under GAA, outcome and output indicators include clearing 96.6% of imported goods within 10 days of the filing of import declaration
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Cargo clearance process should improve by 2%, while enforcement actions resulting in seizures must increase by 2%
The Bureau of Customs (BOC) has been allocated a P2.6-billion budget for 2021, which is 5.4% higher than its P2.45 billion in 2020.
Under the General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 2021 signed by President Rodrigo Duterte on December 28, 2020, BOC’s budget allocation is to be used for general administration and support and operations.
In addition to the approved 2021 budget, BOC has again been granted special provisions to fund several programs.
Some P50 million is allocated to maintaining and improving the operations of the Super Green Lane facility, including the automated customs operations system and related computer systems. The fund, the same budget as last year’s, will be sourced from service fees collected from importers using the facility.
Another P297.43 million will be used to maintain, improve, and upgrade the non-intrusive container inspection system, the money to be obtained from the mandatory container security fee imposed on every 40- and 20-foot container under the system. This budget is the same as the funding provided last year.
About P23.75 billion, also the same as last year’s figure, will be used this year to refund excess or erroneous collection of value-added tax (VAT) and other internal revenue taxes, and monetize tax credit certificates.
To be continued this year is the setting aside of 20% of proceeds from the sale of smuggled and confiscated goods or the collection of additional revenues for use as informer’s reward, to be given to persons instrumental for these sales or collections.
BOC’s strategic objectives this year under the 2021 GAA remain to improve revenue collection and achieve secured trade facilitation using international standards.
Among its performance targets are to meet the 11.6% increase in revenue collection and collect duties and taxes amounting to P695.18 billion, lower than the P731.23 billion target under the 2020 GAA.
BOC said preliminary data showed it collected P539.66 billion in revenues in 2020, surpassing by 6.6% its downgraded annual target of P506.15 billion set by the Development Budget Coordination Committee.
For 2021, BOC’s outcome and output indicators under the GAA still include clearing 96.6% of imported goods within 10 days of the filing of import declaration.
The number of cases filed within 15 days under the Bureau’s Action Team Against Smugglers Program should still be 24 cases. BOC should also apprehend 60 cases of smuggling activities.
To facilitate trade, BOC must improve the cargo clearance process by 2%, the same as last year’s target, while enforcement actions resulting in seizures must increase by 2%, a figure similar to that for 2020.
The number of alerts for this year was decreased to 960 from 1,440 last year. The percentage of shipments selected and physically examined must still be by 2% while the number of cases of anti-social goods seized should remain at 50.
