CA approves ad interim appointment of Recto

MANILA, Philippines —  The Commission on Appointments (CA) approved yesterday the ad interim appointment of Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, who vowed to plug tax leaks, improve tax administration and prevent wasteful expenditures.

“The top three priorities include not to max out the Philippine national credit card, reduce debt to GDP (growth domestic product) of the country. Add more funds for free public education, and support the MUP (military and uniformed personnel) pension bill as we respect the pensions of the retirees,” Recto said of his tenure as Department of Finance chief.

Recto noted that as “the needs of our growing population outpace revenues, the temptation to inflict taxes is there… But such must take a backseat to growing the economy, plugging tax leaks, improving tax administration, and, yes, preventing wasteful expenditures, through carefully curated projects that only yield economic gains.”

The DOF secretary said they are looking to promote the ease of doing business where investors can process their documents online.

“My priorities are to collect the revenues of the government so that we can implement and execute the budget for the year. That’s number one. Number two, to make it easy for businesses to do business so that we can create jobs in the process,” Recto said.

“We will improve tax administration efficiency of the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) and the (Bureau of) Customs,” he said.

He also expressed support to the amendment of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act as exporters should be exempted from Value Added Tax so they will be more competitive globally.

He added that “digitalization is a priority of President Marcos in BIR, BOC, and the ease of doing business, in e-commerce. You can better build a business, pay taxes, reduce traffic, pollution and corruption if the process is digitized.”

Instead of imposing new taxes, Recto said the best way to inculcate tax obedience is still to promote ease of payment, and to show that taxes that are efficiently collected are effectively spent.

Earlier, Recto explained that the proposed 2024 national budget of P5.767 trillion translates to average daily spending of