Friday, August 06, 2004 5 Cebuano legislators open to new taxes By Charmaine Y. Rodriguez
CEBU CITY -- Majority of Cebuano lawmakers are not part of the newly formed Alliance of Legislators Against Regressive Taxes (Alert), which is seeking improvements in tax collection instead of imposing new taxes.
One of them is even willing to co-sponsor a bill to tax text message services, which could prove unpopular in a country where an average of 200 million text messages are sent each day.
Reps. Eduardo Gullas (Cebu, 1st district), Simeon Kintanar (Cebu, 2nd), Antonio Yapha (Cebu, 3rd), Clavel Asas-Martinez (Cebu, 4th) and Raul del Mar (Cebu City, north) confirmed in separate interviews Thursday that they are not members of the alliance, which supports House Resolution 91.
The resolution, author-ed by Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teodoro Casiņo, calls on the House ways and means committee to look into the government's P285-billion yearly tax losses and to plan remedial measures.
Del Mar, deputy house speaker for the Visayas, said he did not notice anyone from Cebu signing the resolution.
Of the five legislators, three expressed support for the imposition of new taxes, with Martinez saying that she will even co-sponsor the legislation that seeks to tax text messaging services.
"It's proper that these text messaging companies should be taxed. You know, those anchorpersons of TV shows with text messaging promos get cuts from telecommunication firms," she said.
However, she refused to discuss further when pressed for details and said that she welcomes moves to oppose it.
"Let them complain and let Congress decide in the plenary," she told Sun.Star.
Del Mar reserved his comment on President Arroyo's proposed eight tax measures aimed at covering the country's budget deficit, which might reach P200 billion this year, and financing her pro-poor programs.
"Since I'm with the leadership, I have to make my stand at the appropriate time," del Mar said in a phone interview Thursday.
New taxes
Gullas, who also heard of the new alliance during last Wednesday night's session in Congress, said he is "inclined to support" the tax measures.
"I have to read the tax measures before I decide against it or in favor of it. I'll leave to my better judgment which ones I will support," he said.
Arroyo's proposed tax measures include the shift to the taxation of net income instead of gross income; the repeal of the value-added tax system; the increase of taxes on liquor, cigarettes and petroleum products; and the imposition of taxes on windfall profits of telecommunication firms.
She also called for the rationalization of fiscal incentives, a targeted tax amnesty, a performance-driven system for revenue agencies and raising the tariff on petroleum products.
Kintanar, for his part, said taxes are really needed by the government to ensure the delivery of basic services and more infrastructure projects.
However, Kintanar and Yapha both agree with Alert's stand on the need to improve tax collection.
Yapha said the government should focus on tax collection efficiency and ensure the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs meet their targets.
"Imposing a new tax means another source of corruption," Yapha warned.
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