Wednesday, June 27, 2007 Gov’t vows not to impose new taxes
PRESS Secretary Ignacio Bunye said the government is committed to its plan to forego any legislated taxes as a means of increasing their revenue collections.
Bunye said despite this, they remain confident that they would be able to reach their deficit targets even after the government already failed to meet its target collection in the first five months of the year.
He also denied that proposals to impose value-added tax on highway toll are part of this revenue boosting measures.
The finance department is conferring with Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) lawyers on whether the 12 percent VAT could be implemented by just invoking the law. They expect an additional P1 billion annually would be generated if this is implemented.
“This is not in the contemplation of the President's announcement. The President very clearly said the tax reform measures that we have passed would suffice for the time being to meet the deficit targets and we are confident that we will meet the deficit targets with a combination of tax measures,” Bunye said.
He said among such measures is the acceleration of privatization programs as a number of companies are already up for privatization this year like the some corporations and energy companies like the Masinloc coal-fired power plant as well as government shares in firms like the Manila Electric Company (Meralco).
Bunye also aaid they are also studying the possible rationalization of some fiscal incentives, which may include the removal of certain perks that are being enjoyed by some sectors.
“I cannot go into details, perhaps the finance secretary can be in a better position to explain what these perks are which are being reviewed. But I think bottom-line is even with the removal of these perks, we should not lose our competitiveness as far as the international market is concerned,” he added. (JMR/Sunnex)
