Aumentado files bill increasing sin taxes
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SECOND DISTRICT solon Erico Aumentado has filed bills increasing sin taxes on cigarettes and liquor to raise funds for the PhilHealth universal coverage of indigents, barangay officials and workers and the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) access to public elementary and high schools, construction of new school buildings and hiring of teachers.
House Bill No. 2485 on cigar’ and cigarettes’ tax increase of P3 pesos per pack is expected to generate P3 billion per year in addition to what has been presently collected by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) for the government’s PhilHealth requirements.
House Bill 2484 increasing by 10 percent the excise tax per liter volume of alcoholic products is estimated to generate about P2.5 billion additional income for the government to fund the Department of Education’s (DepEd) ICT program and the hiring of new teachers, preferably computer proficient, majors in Math, Science and English and to support the “One Teacher, One Classroom” policy that Aumentado has been pushing for DepEd and the National Government to adopt.
To note, research shows that smoking and alcohol drinking can cause cancer, liver and kidney diseases, and even tuberculosis. The increased sin taxes intends to minimize smoking especially among teenagers and even pre-teens, as well as curb abusive alcohol drinking especially among minors, students, the jobless and those below the poverty line.
Statistics bare that the graduated increase of excise taxes in the past has not minimized cigarette smoking whose abusers have grown in alarming numbers – already hitting an estimated 17.3 million of about 90 million Filipinos.
The Aumentado bills increasing the sin taxes effective Jan. 1, 2012 were filed on the heels of President Benigno Aquino III’s disclosure that he is now open to new taxes on alcoholic products and cigarettes to raise funds for the government after the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the imposition of the Value Added Tax (VAT) on the Northern Luzon Expressway (NLEX) and the Southern Luzon Expressway (SLEX) following strong public howl against the imposition.
To benefit from Aumentado’s bill on hiking the tax for cigars and cigarettes are the indigents who are not yet covered by the PhilHealth universal coverage, barangay captains, kagawads, secretaries, treasurers, members of the Lupong Tagapamayapa, tanods, health and day care workers who are considered as frontliners in the delivery of basic services to the people in the barangays.
The additional 10% excise tax on alcoholic products would benefit the high school and elementary school students and teachers with the program on computerization and internet access as well as new teachers hiring and new classrooms construction.
The measures are among Aumentado’s advocacies during the last election campaign. He is now a member of both the House Basic Education Committee and the Ways and Means Committee which will tackle the bills in accordance with the rules of the House of Representatives.(by June S. Blanco)
