MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Finance (DOF) has suspended its order imposing taxes on imported books following criticisms from various sectors.
The National Book Development Board (NBDB), the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Department of Foreign Affairs have criticized Department Order 17-09 which imposed a one percent duty on imported educational, technical, scientific, historical and cultural books and a five percent tariff on other book classifications to be used for profit. The issuance also imposed a five-percent tariff on “books or raw materials not to be used for book publishing and its related activities.”
Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said after evaluating the comments submitted by the three institutions, the department has decided to suspend the order.
“We believe that the NBDB, UNESCO, and the DFA have valid issues that needed to be resolved before we could finalize the guidelines on the duty-free importation of books,” Teves said.
The Finance department issued the order last March in response to complaints on book importations held by the Bureau of Customs. The BOC said some book importers failed to present the required documents that would allow them to import these books duty-free.
However, UNESCO said the order violates the 1950 Florence Agreement among UNESCO members including the Philippines. The agreement stipulates that there would be no taxes or fees charged on the importation of books and other publications.
The Finance chief said the government did not mean to violate the agreement.
“It has never been our intention to impede the free flow of books as enshrined in the UNESCO Florence Agreement, and we fully support free exchange of ideas and knowledge which is accomplished primarily by means of books, publications and educational, scientific and cultural materials,” Teves said.
He defended the department order, saying that its purpose was to improve accountability in the importation of books.
“Our only interest in the issuance of DO 17-09 is to remove discretion among customs officers, increase transparency, and improve accountability in the duty-free importation of books,” he said.
Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales, for his part, said that duties collected from imported books in the first four months of the year only reached P1.7 million.
“We are not really after revenues in this case. We just want to have clear guidelines on the required documents for the duty-free importation of books so that there’s no room for possible harassment of book importers by some of our customs officers,” Morales said.