IMF to send tax experts

IMF to send tax experts

MANILA (AFP): The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is dispatching a team of tax experts to the Philippines to help the government plug tax loopholes, sources in the finance department said yesterday.

The experts will arrive on Jan. 12 for a two-week stint during which they will consult with government officials on their attempts to boost revenues.

Their trip comes as figures released by the Treasury Bureau showed that the government, as of the end of November, had incurred a 7.98 billion-peso (US$200 million) budget deficit.

This was far below the 11.9-billion-peso surplus that was originally projected for that period, the bureau documents said.

The Philippines is due to exit from over three decades of IMF economic supervision next month, provided it passes an oil deregulation law.