The Bureau of Internal Revenue in Central Visayas (BIR-7) recorded a 10.21 percent increase in revenue collections in 2023. At the Bagong Pilipinas forum on Tuesday, BIR-7 Director Douglas Rufino said the bureau recorded a PHP3.9-billion jump in last year's collection compared to 2022. Year-on-year, the tax agency's regional office collected PHP42.5 billion in revenues last year against PHP38.6 billion in 2022. Last year's collection was also 1.47 percent higher than the PHP41.9 billion targeted collection. 'With this, our region was recognized as the Top 2 region all over the country in achieving the highest excess collection over the goal,' Rufino said. He attributed the windfall to the continuous effort in conducting multiple tax operations and constant communication with taxpayers. Among the big operations of the BIR-7 was the issuance of a mission order against cigarette packing machines, raw materials and finished products declared as illicit items. 'This came from an intelligence report from th e police community that there is such an ongoing manufacturing of illicit cigarettes in Daanbantayan (in Cebu),' Rufino said. When the tax agents implemented the mission order, the packing machines and the raw materials were gone but they received information these were moved somewhere to Mandaue City. The BIR-7 seized the cigarette-packing machines and raw materials. The BIR, in coordination with the National Bureau of Investigation-7, arrested a maker of fake Tax Identification Number cards and a barangay captain for using a fake electronic certificate authorizing the registration of a property. Source: Philippines News Agency