Legislated policy reform a must to address tax gap – DoF

There is a need for tax policy reforms to address the collection gap from high-income earners and shift the tax burden from low- and middle-income households to the affluent sector, according to the Department of Finance (DoF).

Citing raw data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), the DoF said in a statement Monday that 27.9 percent of taxes high-income earners should pay are uncollected as a result of a flawed system.

Thus, even if the BIR and the Bureau of Customs (BOC) were to improve collection efficiency to 100 percent, tax revenues to fund public investment program would not be enough given the inherent systemic flaws of the current tax system, which the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP) aims to correct, the department said.

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