The Christmas season is at its peak and the Congress is looking to have a better new year for the state. As per their main tax officer, the House of Representatives is pushing for the approvals and effectivity of four new tax bills starting next year, 2020.
After many years of feeling that tax has literally no impact, lawmakers are pushing to make tax an "impactful" factor in their lives.
As per them, this will raise a total of P492 billion from all taxpayers in the country as well as the infamous gambling industry in the country that has been operating for about five (5) years now.
That figure, in fact, is a shy and conservative amount - it could be even more. Let's know more details about it.
Four new tax bills
Joey Salceda, Albay Representative said that his panel would be the one to "sustain its commitment to funding President Rodrigo Duterte's key infra and human development priorities." Salceda is the one who chairs the House means and ways committee.
In addition, he said that they'll be pushing for the effectivity of four tax bills that would lift the country's taxes.
To this end, we will keep our push for passage in plenary of four key tax bills that the committee has already endorsed."
Part of what Salceda specified was the five (5) percent license fee on POGOs, the new mining industry fiscal regime, the road user tax that would be doubled, and taxes on using single plastics.
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The biggest increment on the new bills
Out of the four new tax bills that would take effect starting next year, the road user tax that would be doubled would be the bill that would bring in the highest revenue, toppling to P236 billion. Officially, it has been named as the Motor Vehicle User's Charge (MVUC) and it is aimed to double the tax on motor vehicle registrations.
Because of the 11 million Filipinos who own motor vehicles, that would be the tax bill that would have the best and the largest impact of the four.
Following would be the POGO taxes. As per Salceda, this bill targeted to POGOs would produce a total of P213 billion in five (5) years. Meaning, it'll be bringing about P42.6 billion per year - that's how large POGOs are in the country.
Read: Higher Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages and E-Cigarettes, OK-ed by the House
POGOs as means to increase salary of public school teachers
What better way could these POGOs be of help to us than to help in the increase of the compensation of public school teachers? Mikee Romero, Iligan City Representative and Deputy Speaker and a representative of the 1-Pacman party list, said that we can definitely tap on these scattered POGOs to fund a bigger and better salary hike for public school teachers.
The hike that the teachers are demanding is at P10,000 per teacher - and there are a total of 900,000 public school teachers in the whole country; it'll just come around 9 billion pesos per month!
Comparing that to the plan of how their salaries would be upgraded; P6,000 total increase over the course of four (4) years from 2020 up until 2023. This figure is just like having a P52 daily increase for the teachers.
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This issue has been to and fro but finally now, it has come to a resolution. Many teachers were opposing, saying that they were not the real priorities of the President because he prioritized increasing the salaries of military men and the police. What our dear President was doing was just he kept on promising that he will increase their salaries - there they go! And yet, some groups are still not satisfied and contented with the change..
If POGOs would agree to the proposal, they'll make a much better, a more efficient difference to the lives of public school teachers.
Read: Senate President Vicente Sotto III Looks to Exempt Public School Teachers From Income Tax
The last and least exciting of the four are the single-use plastics and the mining taxation scheme which would generate P22.1 billion and P20.6 billion, respectively. As you can see, they're far from the figures and yields of the other two of the four new tax bills.
The CITIRA
Salceda, on the other hand, also talked about the Corporate Income Tax and Incentives Reform Act (CITIRA). This act would reduce the income tax from the current thirty (30) percent to just twenty (20) percent over the course of ten (10) consecutive years.
Under the act, tax discounts and holidays would be more or less performance based. He said that about a few months ago, the House of Representatives has submitted and sent the proposal (CITIRA) to the Senate - it immediately got slammed by lawmakers.
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On the other side of the map, the Department of Finance (DoF) is on the move of supporting it fully. Other agencies, however, such as the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and other business groups are not agreeing on some of the provisions of the act.
Of course, the most important priority next year will be to pass the proposed Corporate Income Tax and Incentives Reform Act (CITIRA). This is the single most important economic reform measure after EDSA. I expect the Senate to pass CITIRA within the first two months of 2020."
On a closing note, Salceda expressed his thoughts that he is expecting the Senate body of the Philippines to duly approve the Real Property Valuation and Assessment Reform Act as well as the Passive Income and Financial Intermediaries Tax, and the Real Property Valuation and Assessment Reform Act in the next year.
Although farfetched, but Salceda really has his hopes up that the CITIRA would be a success - that it would be the single-most act that could help our country prosper more.
He said that as the Chair of the committee, he had three (3) solid goals he wants to achieve by the year 2022 and he assured that they'll tirelessly be working for our country to get this.
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As chair of the committee on ways and means, I have three goals that we need to achieve by 2022: A-level credit rating, eight percent economic growth, widespread prosperity. We will work tirelessly to achieve these."
What are your thoughts?
Hopefully, the four new tax bills can be a great impact to the country. Hopefully, these new bills, should the be signed into law, can change the course of how the country is financially.
Read: Greater and Higher Taxes on Alcoholic Drinks, OK-ed by House Panel
Apart from the four new bills that they're eyeing on for the coming year, the other plans (side plans) that they have that would help our countrymen prosper could hopefully be a sign of our country growing again.
Source: The Philippine Star
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