The country’s total revenues went up by 14.8 percent in the first seven months of the year, Finance Secretary Ralph Recto said on Tuesday.

Recto, during the Senate of the Philippines’ Public Hearing of the Committee on Finance for the 2025 proposed Department of Finance (DOF) budget, said the total revenues in January to July this year amounted to PHP2.6 trillion, up from last year’s PHP2.27 trillion.

“We are on track to meet our fiscal program for the year with the robust performances of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Bureau of Customs, the Bureau of the Treasury, and our GOCCs [government-owned and controlled corporations],” Recto said.

Of the total revenues, the BIR collected PHP1.68 trillion, 12.7 percent higher than the PHP1.42 billion collections last year.

The BOC, on the other hand, collected PHP535.9 billion, up by 5.8 percent from the PHP506.5 billion in January to July 2023.

Revenue collections of other offices also grew by 14.9 percent to PHP20.4 billion from PHP17.8 billion.

Recto said non-tax revenues amounted to PHP368.8 billion from PHP255.3 billion last year.

He said the dividends from GOCCs contributed to this increase.

“This strong revenue performance placed us among Asia’s top revenue-to-GDP ratios at 17.1 percent for the first half of the year. And this is above our full-year target of 16.1 percent,” he said.

“We credit this feat to the BIR and BOC’s BRAVE digitalization strategies and the balikatan with allied agencies to kick our revenue operations into high gear,” he said.

BRAVE includes the main strategies for revenue operations which aim to stop smuggling and illicit trade.

These include border security enhancement; revenue collection and revenue-base protection; adaptive regulations and compliance monitoring; vigilant enforcement operations and vigorous intelligence gathering activities; and effective engagement with stakeholders and inter-agency cooperation.

“As we ramp up BRAVE, we anticipate a 10.3 percent average annual growth in total revenues over the medium term to support our people’s growing needs,” Recto said.

Recto said revenues as a percentage of GDP will increase from 16.1 percent in 2024 to 17 percent in 2028.

“With higher revenues and improved expenditure management, our fiscal deficit is projected to drop from 5.6 percent in 2024 to 3.7 percent by 2028,” he said. (PNA)