CUSTOMS commissioner Napoleon Morales cautioned the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) from assigning steep collection targets, saying this may not be achieveable because tariffs are on their way down.
The DBCC has assigned the Bureau of Customs (BOC) a collection target of P275.68 billion this year which will increase to P333.1 billion in 2011.
For the years 1998 to 2008, the BOC met its target six times with the highest surplus recorded in 2003 and 2004. Moving forward, this may be more difficult to repeat with tariff rates decreasing progressively.
“Tariff rate… showed a decelerating growth of 48.9% from 11.28% average rate in 1998,” the BOC said in a report.
“From a double-digit average tariff rate in 1998, it (tariff) has gone down to 9.08% in 1999 and continued to slide… from… 5.26% in 2003 before slightly recovering to 5.76% in 2008,” the report added.
