`Get Congress okay on fee hikes'

The Estrada administration should secure first the approval of Congress before carrying out its plan to raise fees on certain documents and services, Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers said yesterday.

Barbers lamented that President Estrada's new economic team, headed by Finance Secretary Jose Pardo, is "taxing the public's patience."

Barbers said the new team seems to have a "fetish" for new taxes, the latest of which is the proposal to raise fees for passports, driver's licenses and other services often needed by the masses.

Barbers said the administration wants to resort to such moves "because (they are) the fastest and less cumbersome ways of raising taxes on the contestable belief that (they) won't need the concurrence of Congress."

Instead of increasing fees, he said the government should concentrate more on collecting "the right taxes, by and from the right people, at the right time."

Low revenue collection and increased government expenditures resulted in a P113-billion budget deficit last year, more than double the original projection.

The government was only able to collect P478.4 billion in taxes as against expenditures of P592 billion, Barbers said.

Rep. Ernesto Herrera said the government failed to narrow the budget deficit partly because 18 of the 19 "revenue regions" of the Bureau of Internal Revenue - except Bicol - did not meet their collection targets last year.