Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner Joel Tan-Torres said taxpayers claims for losses due to tropical storms “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” totalled P37 billion, higher than earlier estimates of P26 billion.

The BIR chief announced this latest number late last week, boosting his appeal to the Department of Finance (DoF) to lower the BIR tax collection target this year since despite the generally upbeat growth forecasts, the direction of the recovering global economy is still uncertain. BIR Regional Director Alfredo Misajon said the local economy is still “sluggish.”

“While we expect election spending to act as (stimulus), mostly we’re hoping for a smooth transition after the May elections,” said Misajon. “We also see VAT (value added tax) collections rising because of consumption growth and usually, election-related consumer spending will impact on VAT positively.”