Congress convenes joint oversight body on sin taxes

MANILA, Philippines - The Senate and the House of Representatives have convened the joint oversight committee review on the implementation of the country’s tax laws, particularly excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco products, as government revenue agencies have failed to meet their targets in the last three years.

Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara and Marikina City Rep. Romero Quimbo, chairpersons of the Senate and House ways and means committees respectively, said yesterday that both chambers decided to convene the body owing to the poor revenue collections of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Bureau of Customs (BOC).

“The necessity to assess our internal revenue laws is made more imperative considering the repeated shortfalls in the revenue collection effort of both the BIR and the BOC,” Quimbo said.

He noted that despite Congress’ consistent and steadfast support to the needs of the Department of Finance (DOF), it has failed in the last three years to meet its collection targets.

“Something is obviously amiss. We need to get to the bottom of it,” Quimbo added.

The lawmaker also said the need for Congress to conduct oversight to prompt the DOF to meet its revenue targets is even more pressing with Malacañang’s policy of not imposing new taxes.

Congress and President Aquino have been giving Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima all the support in the past several months “so there should be no more excuses this time if revenue targets are again missed.”

“We all stood behind the finance secretary, even the President gave him carte blanche in revamping the Bureau of Customs so this (revenues) is no longer about the Customs or the BIR, the buck stops with the DOF,” Quimbo stressed.