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PALACIOS TO NORITA:
‘Collect outstanding $121.4M’
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Posted on Jul 27 2023
Gov. Arnold I. Palacios has instructed Finance Secretary Tracy B. Norita to figure out how to collect some of the $121.4 million in total outstanding collectibles from account receivables the government has amassed in the last 10 years.
If Norita needs more people to help with the collection, then they will have to assign two to three staff from within the government to work with her on this, said Palacios in a news briefing last week.
Palacios said he does not have specific information about the $121.4 million outstanding collectibles, but he suspects that some of those are probably owed by companies that no longer exist.
“Why didn’t we collect it back then? I’m not sure. But we just need to get into the details [about] them and see what is collectible,” the governor said.
Norita disclosed the $121.4 million total outstanding collectibles during the Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget hearing last July 14. It was learned then that, of that total amount, $30 million are in employee quarterly withholdings that were not remitted by government and private employers.
Norita said that Finance’s Tax Collection Task Force has set an initial target of collecting on these outstanding receivables within 180 days and that even if they have only a 5% success rate, they would still realize at least $6.07 million in the next six months.
She said they want to go more than 5% and if they collect as much as 20%, that would translate to $24.2 million.
