SIN TAX HIKE PUSHED

DOF appeals to senators anew as “sin” tax reform will fund Universal Health Care (UHC).

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has made an 11th-hour appeal to senators to speed up the approval of a new “sin” tax reform law that would further impose higher excise tax rates on alcohol and tobacco products to help fill the massive funding gap for the Universal Health Care (UHC) program and ensure affordable and quality health care for every Filipino family starting next year.

Dominguez also urged senators in a recent meeting with them to continue pushing fiscal reforms in the incoming 18th Congress to give the Philippines “a good chance” of securing the much-coveted single “A” grade for the country’s long-term sovereign credit rating within two years.

A single “A” investment grade credit rating, Dominguez said, will not only benefit the government and private sector investors through lower borrowing rates when they invest in projects for economic expansion, but will also mean ordinary Filipinos will also get to pay lower interest rates on their loans.

The efforts of the 17th Congress in passing crucial measures such as the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law and the Rice Liberalization Law, among others, will be judged by history “as game-changing reforms that placed the Philippines on a higher growth path,” Dominguez noted.

Government funds are not enough to fulfill the financing requirements for the UHC law beginning 2020, he told senators.

Dominguez earlier pointed out that from 2020 to 2024, all current sources of government funding can cover UHC at around P200 billion annually, while the cost of the program will continue to grow to as much as P1.44 trillion during the first five years of implementation.