House OKs 3 bills to generate P47 billion annual revenue

MANILA, Philippines — At least P47 billion in annual revenues are expected to be generated once three bills recently approved by the House of Representatives are enacted into law, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda said.

The chairman of the House ways and means committee said House Bills 4102 (Single-use Plastic Bags Tax Act), 4122 (VAT on Non-resident Digital Service Providers) and 4339 (Package 4 of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program) are sure to benefit the economy.

“The measures could yield a total of P47 billion annually,” Salceda said in a statement.

“With this, the House wraps up with all the priority tax measures of the Duterte-era Comprehensive Tax Reform Program and is ready to move on to tax collection reforms, as prioritized by the Marcos administration,” he added.

The three measures, of which he is primary author and sponsor, have been passed on second reading in the plenary. He expects that the measures will be approved on third and final reading in the House either by Monday or Tuesday next week.

Salceda also expects that the bills will be ready for discussion in the Senate, which is also expected to tackle the Ease-of-Paying Taxes Act (EOPT).

“I think we will have at least one tax law enacted over the next six months, very possibly EOPT,” he said. “But I am hopeful that we will have at least one more, hopefully one of these three.” Salceda cited how Congress is moving to remove the Philippines’ tag as ‘world’s biggest ocean plastic polluter.”

Last Tuesday, the House approved on second reading a bill that aims to penalize the use of disposable plastic bags by taxing violators, in an attempt to eliminate the notion that Philippines is among the world’s worst polluters.

“This is in line with the country’s efforts to fight ocean pollution, especially since we are now recognized ignominiously as the world’s biggest ocean plastic polluter,” Salceda said of HB 4102, or the Single-use Plastic Bags Tax Act.

He explained that the plastic bags tax, which will impose an excise tax of P100 per kilo of disposable plastic bags, is among the priority bills of the House under the leadership of Speaker Martin Romualdez.

Single-use plastics – also referred to as disposable plastics – are commonly used for plastic packaging, which include items to be used only once before they are thrown away or recycled.

The 2015 report on plastic pollution by the Ocean Conservancy and the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment named the Philippines as the third largest highest source of ocean plastic pollution with an estimated 2.7 million metric tons of plastic waste.

The United Nations, on the other hand, has estimated that land-based sources, including plastic waste that has been blown into rivers and creeks by wind, are responsible for 80 percent of the world’s marine debris.

“For the digital services VAT, it will not be imposed on Filipino businesses. The emphasis is on foreign or non-resident digital service providers. All major ASEAN economies impose VAT on these entities. We are the only ones who don’t,” Salceda, speaking partly in Filipino, said.

As for the CTRP Package 4, he said that the lifting of the exemption on pickup trucks “merely corrects an unfair privilege on a vehicle that is mostly for the rich, occupies very large space on the road and is by all accounts less fuel-efficient than most other vehicles.”