Customs and BIR Set to Receive ₱3.5B for Digitalization Funding

The main tax agencies of the government were able to obtain more than one-fourth of the administration’s budget for information and communications technology (ICT) for 2023 according to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

DBM Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman has mentioned that the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs is set to receive ₱3.56 billion for 2023 for their digital transformation initiatives.

Sec Pangandaman has stated that the budget for Customs and BIR digitalization projects is equal to around ₱12.4 billion or 28.6% of the proposed budgets specifically for ICT projects.

“We will prioritize digitalization and accelerate digitalization transformation… the improvement of revenue collection through digitalization will also be a priority,” she says.

Under the proposed national budget for next year, the Department of Information and Communications Technology is set to get the biggest allocation with ₱4.24 billion or 34% of the total budget of ₱12.4 billion.

The bigger ICT funds for Customs and BIR come as a result of Department of Finance (DOF) Secretary Benjamin Diokno promising to upgrade tax agencies’ fight against corruption through modernization of their operations and going digital.

It was Sec Diokno who stated that the key to eradicating and transforming corruption in these two agencies would be via digitalization.

The BIR’s Digital Transformation (DX) Program plans to reshape the agency into a data-driven organization by providing a digitally-empowered workforce to improve BIR services and the experience of taxpayers.

For the Customs, Deputy Commissioner Edward James Dy Buco has stated that their agency was one of the first government agencies to use paperless transactions.

Source: Manila Bulletin