The Bureau of Internal Revenue collected a net P187.387 billion in taxes last month, even as a sharp rise in refund releases weighed on its overall take for the period.
Gross collections for March reached P198.755 billion, the BIR announced Wednesday — an 11.87 percent increase over the same month in 2025. However, the agency returned P11.368 billion in tax refunds, a figure more than five times what it released in March of last year, pulling the net figure down.
Despite the refund outflow, net collections still came in 6.68 percent above March 2025 levels.
The March figures come as the BIR pushes toward a P3.58 trillion collection target for the full year 2026 — a significantly steeper goal given that the agency fell short of its 2025 objective, collecting P3.11 trillion against a P3.2 trillion target set by the government.
