MANILA, Philippines – Sinalag ni Department of Finance (DOF) Secretary Benjamin Diokno nitong Huwebes, Agosto 10, ang ideya na pagpapataas sa tax sa luxury items.
Ang luxury goods kasi ay kasalukuyang mayroong 20 percent tax.
Ipinaliwanag naman ni Diokno sa tanong ni Nueva Ecija Rep. Rosanna Ria Vergara sa pagbubukas ng 2024 budget deliberations na mahirap itong ipatupad at madaling iwasan.
“I was wondering, do you have anything on your table that propose like a proportional tax, a luxury tax, a wealth tax? Is that something you would consider?” tanong ni Vergara.
Ani Diokno, walang ganitong proposal ang ahensya.
“When you propose a tax, one nice property of a tax is it should give you a high yield and the administrative cost should be very minimal… For example, if you wanna tax diamond, you’re practically not going to collect anything because that’s easy to hide,” sinabi naman ni Diokno.
“Sometimes when you also try to tax a luxury good, people will just go abroad and buy it there… Luxury tax is not part of our proposal at the moment,” dagdag pa niya.
Matatandaan na nauna nang sinabi ni Albay Rep. Joey Salceda ang posibilidad na taasan ang tax sa mga alahas, pabango at yate ng 25% o 30% para mapataas ang kita ng pamahalaan.
Sinabi naman ni Pangulong Ferdinand Marcos Jr. na ang naturang proposal ay “reasonable.”
Nang tanungin naman kung ikinokonsidera rin ba ng pamahalaan ang non-regressive taxes, sinabi nu Diokno na pinag-aaralan nila ang VAT dahil maliit lamang ang nakokolekta ng pamahalaan dito sa kung ano ang dapat nilang makuha mula sa VAT.
“[VAT here] is one of the highest in this part of the world yet its yield is very low, only 40 percent. We only collect 40 percent of what we’re supposed to collect so we are doing a study on the value added tax which is a nice tax to make it more effective and more high yielding,” ayon kay Diokno.
Idinipensa naman ni Diokno ang VAT bilang pro-poor.
“I think our value added tax is one of the best in terms of being pro-poor because we do not tax food in its original state, in other countries it’s also being taxed.” RNT/JGC
