Today’s Business Links
Plenty of tax news as the President chaired a conference yesterday at the Philippines’ internal revenue headquarters: BIR beats July target, collects P57.9B but is short PHP 38.5 billion for the first seven months of 2007 compared to the same period last year. One excuse: BIR blames inflation for poor VAT results. Also: Arroyo asks BIR to focus on ‘big fishes’ with the aid of the latest technology.
The 2007 Philippine tax amnesty offer, barring any last-minute glitches, should be open to interested takers on Wednesday, and yesterday’s BusinessWorld interviewed a revenue official who is skeptical of the program’s success:
“A tax bureau official, requesting anonymity, said that by allowing assessments to be compromised, the tax amnesty law and its implementing guidelines are making the bureau “not collect” what it should.
“The bureau is under fire for its huge shortfall in the first half. It collected P334.7 billion or P38.6 billion less than its target in the six-month period. The Bureau of Customs also performed poorly, its collection short by P13.1 billion versus its P105.3-billion goal.
“The official clarified that the tax bureau usually does not collect the full amount of its assessments. “We collect a fourth — and that’s a conservative estimate. But I doubt if we can collect the same through the amnesty program.” “
The cost of money has gone up again as Treasury bill rates increased at yesterday’s auction.
“The 91-day T-bill rate, which banks use as benchmark in pricing loans, rose to 3.711 percent from 3.625 percent in the previous auction. The government awarded an additional P400 million on top of the original offer of P1 billion worth on tenders of P5.09 billion.
“The 182-day T-bill rate went up to 4.765 percent from 4.639 percent, with government increasing the offer size by P600 million to P2.1 billion.”
Bad news from Philippine agriculture: Farm sector growth slows in first semester of the year.
“In a briefing Monday, Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap said the farm sector grew 3.5 percent in the six months to June, lower than 5.24 percent in the same period in 2006.
“Although agriculture production expanded 3.64 percent from April to June, it performed slower than 6.64 percent in the same period last year.
“The sector, which contributes a fifth of the domestic economy, was expected to grow 4 percent to 5 percent this year, a target Yap said may not be realized due to a prolonged dry spell.”
Philippine science officials, on the other hand, declare that dry spell over for most of Luzon. Something for Mr. Yap to smile about.
Tony Lopez claims that McDonalds’ in the Philippines is giving longtime rival Jollibee a sound drubbing.
In the blogosphere, Ajay penned A publicist’s guide to dealing with bloggers. Mike Villar takes a critical look of Globe Handyphone’s re-branding campaign. An OFW Living In Hong Kong supplies no-nonsense advice on how to avoid illegal recruitment.
Uniffors takes note of an early casualty of the appreciating peso: BPO’s in real trouble – at least the smaller ones.
Listen to remixed Doctor Who themes here. Good stuff for Whovians.
