THE National Treasury should make an immediate decision to enforce tax measures that does not add burden on citizens, rather promise a direct relief and benefit from their share of excise taxes.
To address the problem, the collection must at least move the same speed in the distribution. This should be the existing rule to ensure fairness in our country.
In the recent Philippine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (PH-EITI) road show in Baguio City, the local government units (LGUs) raised the notion for various sectors in the country to study and approve the possibility of directly remitting shares of national wealth tax directly to them.
The approval or creation of a decent law for such is being pushed in order to fast track the use of the taxes in present projects and/or developments instead of waiting for the government’s action to distribute their share in a latter time.
In the present condition, the collection of national wealth tax is processed by companies through paying taxes to the Bureau of Internal Revenue before the allocation of funds through the General Annual Appropriations.
It can take months or even year/s before the various LGUs can obtain the amount of money they split from hosting those mining, oil, and gas industries.
Many of those who knew this process would wonder why the National Government’s rests not to give an action, they have been ignoring the system while in fact here comes basic mathematics principle where it is a clear 60-40 percent sharing.
LGUs are supposed to be given a total of 40 percent share from the taxes paid, which is then subdivided into 45 percent share for the host city or municipality, 35 percent share for the villages, and 20 percent share for the rest of the province.
Is this just too hard for our leaders to take note that whatever collection is being taken, there will always be something that goes back to the hosts?
Why is there a need to prolong development while in truth the trail of the wealth already started from the communities who seems to beg every now and then for the money that came from their own backyards.
Given the poor management of the excise tax distribution in the country, simple analogy of allocation should be considered, period.
Pedro’s is for Pedro, Juan’s is for Juan as simple as that. It should not even go more complicated than the call for Federalism or Autonomy, and this literally speaking is a piece of cake.