'No plans' for new taxes – Recto
NEW taxes are not on the new Finance secretary's agenda and the government will instead focus on improving revenue collections to help fund its spending needs.
«Inflation is high… and when you impose taxes, that is also inflationary,» Finance Secretary Ralph Recto told reporters on Wednesday during a briefing at the Bureau of Customs (BoC).
«So I don't think that now is the time to impose very high taxes… frankly speaking, there are no plans of imposing additional new taxes,» he added.
«I think our first job is to collect what is on the table. And that's why we are planning with the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) and the Customs commissioner to improve efficiency.»
Tax proposals pushed by his predecessor, Benjamin Diokno, will still be pursued but several have to be reviewed and amended with a view to making rates «fairer» and easier to collect.
Some of the tax measures that the Finance department wants Congress to pass are the Real Property Valuation and Assessment Reform measure, a value-added tax (VAT) on digital service providers, a VAT refund for non-resident tourists, and the proposed Passive Income and Financial Intermediaries Taxation Act.
«We're tweaking them,» Recto said, again noting that additional taxes would have an inflationary effect.
"[T]he fine-tuning will be on what is fairer, number one. What is easy to collect, number two. What is practical — that's how we're looking at it."
One of the measures being revised is an increase in the road user's tax — approved by the House of Representatives last month but has yet to be passed by the Senate.
Recto — who was Senate president before being named Finance chief two weeks ago — said motorists were already paying «a lot of taxes.»
«There are excise taxes and VAT on oil… excise taxes, duties, and VAT on vehicles,» he noted, adding that «today, 50 percent or thereabouts of vehicles are unregistered.»
"[I]f you impose higher taxes, maybe more vehicles will not register, right? So, I think we have to temper some of these increases because, like I said, they're also inflationary," he added.
«It's all about timing as well. So, we're looking at all this, all the tax proposals, and more or less, we're almost done
