QC treasurer seeks deferred VAT law

Quezon City Treasurer Dr. Victor Endriga, the country’s top tax collector, said that President Arroyo could sign the value-added tax (VAT) measure into law, but should defer its implementation over an interregnum of five years to allow the economy to recover first.

Endriga, whose tax collection efficiency methods had outwitted tax avoidance efficiency of tax dodgers, said that while he sympathized with the fiscal problems of a cash-strapped national government, the great mass of people should not suffer needlessly for the inadequacy and corrupt practices prevailing in the system.

Citing statistics that show that only 60 percent of taxes due persons, entities, goods and services are actually collected and citing a World Bank report that P200 billion are lost to graft and corruption, Endriga said: "Only a conscientious effort to collect taxes form very source and a corresponding sense of public accountability where every peso collected is deposited into the national coffer, ensure a fat kitty."

He said that having VAT as a tax policy is not a guarantee that more revenues could be generated by government.

"It won’t improve the collection capability of inept and corrupt tax collectors," he said. "Necessity being the mother of all creations will only prod professional tax cheats to create new tax evasion techniques in collusion with misfits in the tax collection agencies. Effective and diligent tax collection is still the answer to money problems of government."

Endriga holds a Doctorate’s Degree in Fiscal Studies from and a Fellow at the Harvard University Institute of International Development/John F. Kennedy School of Government.

His book, Roadmap to Financial Stability has aroused national interest in sound monetary policies that business and government official throughout the islands had invited him to conduct lectures on the subject matter. There is also a nationwide clamor for him to take the reins of the Bureau of Internal Revenue in the event Commissioner Guillermo Parayno resigns.

Endriga said that signing the VAT law should serve notice that the "sword of Damocles" hangs and could drop anytime depending on the response of governed on the government’s clarion call for conscientious tax payment.

He called on the taxpaying public to pay their taxes judiciously and religiously if they don’t want additional tax burdens.