Time running out for proposed income tax cut – speaker

MANILA, Philippines – The proposal to reduce individual income taxes will not get approved in the 16th Congress due to lack of support from President Aquino – and with only a few months left before the current administration steps down, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said yesterday.

Belmonte expressed hope that the measure, which adjusts the tax brackets to factor in inflation, would be included in the priorities of the 17th Congress, which convenes on June 30 next year.

“He’s (Aquino) against it. You better spend your time on something that will get approved rather than will not be approved – just to prove a point,” Belmonte told reporters.

“For us here, the fact that it has been discussed to a certain extent, it’s there on the record, people will pick it up in the next Congress for sure,” he said.

He said it was the same case for many previous bills that eventually were enacted into law after several years or spanning more than one Congress.

“I think time’s not on our side, we want the idea to be developed so that others will pick it up from us,” he added.

He also said he did not like the way the Department of Finance was handling the issue by pressing Congress to lift bank secrecy laws in exchange for its support.

“It’s really crazy that they’re not looking at the impact (of lifting bank secrecy),” Belmonte said.

Meanwhile, allies of administration presidential candidate Manuel Roxas II said he was quietly trying to convince Aquino to change his mind.

Youth Against Corruption and Poverty party-list Rep. Carol Jayne Lopez said Roxas has been meeting Aquino on the issue.

“He (Roxas) has been having so many talks with the President, as far as I know, regarding this. He’s not giving up,” Lopez said.

Laguna Rep. Dan Fernandez said Roxas has kept quiet on the meetings with Aquino so as not to be seen as doing it for his campaign.

Still hoping

Some senators are still hoping Aquino will soften his stand on proposals to cut the income tax rate and acknowledge that doing so will benefit ordinary Filipinos and not just earn him or any politician brownie points.

Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, chairman of the Senate committee on ways and means, said that there is universal support for the proposed indexation of taxes – not just from politicians trying to score brownie points with voters.

“We hope he can still change his mind because indexation of taxes to present-day values is something actors all over the political spectrum, whether left right or center, agree upon,” Angara said.

“Even economists, professors, entrepreneurs and workers agree that this law is needed now,” he said.

“Indexation is long overdue, because 2015 is no longer 1997 and it’s patently unjust for regular people and regular employees to be taxed so heavily,” he added.

In a meeting with reporters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Sunday night, the President said that it would be irresponsible for him to lower the income tax rates without coming up with measures to make up for the expected loss in revenue.

The President aired his concern that the country’s credit rating, which has improved significantly under his administration, could be affected if the proposed income tax rate cut is implemented.