Cebu Provincial Board, Newscoop oppose move to withdraw tax exemption

CEBU, Philippines- The Cebu Provincial Board and the Cebu Newsworkers Multi-Purpose Cooperative (Cebu Newscoop) have opposed the move withdrawing the tax exemption given to cooperatives now pending in Congress.

Cebu Newscoop Board passed last Friday a resolution opposing the proposal while the PB also passed yesterday a resolution sponsored by Board Member Jude Thaddeus Sybico, chairman of the committee on cooperatives.

Cebu Newscoop is now joining other 23,000 cooperatives nationwide in opposing the proposal.

Republic Act 9520 also known as “The Cooperative Code of the Philippines” prescribes to give cooperatives tax exemption privileges.

 Five House Bills on the Rationalization of Fiscal Investment Incentives are presently being deliberated in the Lower House.

These bills include HB 2765 authored by Cebu 6th district Representative Gabriel Luis Quisumbing, HB 302 by Tarlac 2nd district Representative Susan Yap, and HB 1788 by Cagayan de Oro City 2nd district Representative Rufus Rodriguez and Abante Mindanao Partylist Representative Maximo Rodriguez.

Similar measures were filed at the Senate: Senate Bill 2048 authored by Senator Loren Legarda, SB 987 by Senator Ralph Recto, and Senate Bill 35 by Senator Cynthia Villar.

 Quisumbing’s HB 2765 and Legarda’s SB 2048 expressly propose the repeal of the law granting tax exemption privileges to cooperatives.

 “The removal of the tax exemption privilege is repugnant to the tenets of social justice and will impede the growth of countryside-based enterprise or people-empowered social organizations that constitute more than 97% of all enterprises in Asia Pacific economies,” Sybico said.

 Among the non-taxable income of cooperatives are those derived from business transactions with their members.

Cooperatives with assets of not more than P10 million are exempt from “all national, city, municipal or barangay taxes. They are also exempt from customs duties, advance sales or compensation taxes on their importation of machineries, equipment and spare parts used by them.”

While cooperatives enjoy certain tax privileges, they are in fact tax makers by delivering into the government treasury some P4 billion a year through the taxes collected from over half-a million of their employees.  Apart from the taxes collected, around 1.9 million people are indirectly employed in the cooperative sector.

 The proposed measure has been certified as priority legislation by President Benigno Simeon Aquino III in his last State of the Nation Address (SONA).

 The cooperative movement, led by the Philippine Cooperative Center (PCC), is launching a nationwide campaign against the proposed Fiscal Investment Incentives bills in both Houses of Congress.  (FREEMAN)