Philippines—Facilitating Public Investment (FPI)

With reform-minded leadership and the commitment of the United States and Philippine governments to transformational change—embodied in their joint Partnership for Growth—the Philippines has a rare opportunity to address some critical fiscal issues. FPI helped the government of the Philippines increase its fiscal space to enable inclusive economic growth as well as identify synergies between increasing revenue collection and improving the business environment.

The project promoted optimization of public expenditures through results-oriented budgeting and fiscal transparency, eliminating ineffective spending in favor of high-impact programs and public investment in infrastructure, education, technology, and other areas. Our key counterparts were the Department of Finance, Bureau of Internal Revenue, Department of Budget Management, and Bureau of Customs.

Sample Activities

• Partner with government agencies to improve electronic tax filing IT system and promote use by taxpayers.
• Work with mobile payment providers and local banks to expand channels and locations for tax payment.
• Build revenue forecasting capacity of government agencies.
• Build capacity of government officials in budgeting, program evaluation, and cost-benefit analysis.
• Promote good governance and anti-corruption transparency initiatives.
• Support national-level tax policy reform legislation.

Select Results

• Partnered with the Bureau of Internal Revenue to improve performance of electronic filing system during peak season and reduce service cutouts, contributing to an increased rate of taxpayers using electronic filing, from just 10 percent in 2013 to over 90 percent in 2016.
• Supported public awareness campaign on electronic filing which, together with filing IT system improvements, helped to drive a 10 percent increase in collections in 2015, while also reducing waiting lines in select regional tax administration offices by several hours.
• Provided technical assistance to the Department of Budget and Management to streamline key internal business processes, helping to identify the opportunity to free up $500 million within the 2016 national government budget.