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BY MAE SINGUAY
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Friday, May 26, 2017
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BACOLOD City – Councilors were against the proposed imposition of excise taxes on several commodities and the expansion of the value-added tax (VAT).
These proposals were contained in the Duterte administration’s Comprehensive Tax Reform Package, which lowers income taxes for most earners but raises consumption taxes.
The Sangguniang Panlungsod approved a resolution expressing opposition to these provisions of the tax package after the measure was passed by the House of Representatives’ ways and means committee.
According to Councilor Caesar Distrito, author of the resolution, the tax reform package seeks to impose excise taxes on diesel — an initial P3 per liter that may go up to P5 by 2019 and P6 by 2020.
Excise taxes of P6 per liter will also be imposed on kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG, and P10 per liter on sugar sweetened beverages, he said.
“The imposition of these taxes will surely affect the daily consumption of our citizens, given that with higher fuel prices, the prices of basic commodities also increase,” the councilor explained.
Lawmakers and the national government were supposed to come up with “solutions that will ease the daily problems” of Filipinos, “not overburden them with excessive taxes,” Distrito stressed.
Moreover, higher taxes do not guarantee rapid developments, he said.
The government still has to address issues like the efficient and proper collection of taxes before raising them or imposing more, Distrito said.
The tax package has been dubbed by the Department of Finance as a key component of “Dutertenomics.”
It seeks to lower personal income taxes by restructuring tax brackets and cutting the tax rate for those earning no more than P5 million to 25 percent from the current 32 percent.
It also seeks to raise corporate income tax to 35 percent from 32 percent.
In addition, the tax package mandates new taxes such as excise taxes on refined petroleum products, on particular automobiles, and sugar sweetened beverages and carbonated drinks, as well as the restructuring of excise taxes on alcoholic drinks.
Earlier Rep. Alfredo Benitez (Negros Occidental, 3rd District) sought to lower the proposed excise tax on sugar sweetened beverages to P5 from P10 per liter.
Of the proceeds from such excise tax, 15 percent must be turned into an additional source of funding for sugar industry development, Benitez said.
Rep. Stephen Paduano of Abang Lingkod party-list, on the other hand, proposed that 15 percent of the projected P3.5-billion incremental revenue from the P10-per-liter excise tax on sugar sweetened beverages be given to sugar milling districts through the Sugar Regulatory Administration. (With a report from ABS-CBN News/PN)
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