TRAIN: As good as it gets

At no time have taxes on personal incomes been substantially reduced than now with the effectivity of TRAIN or the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law. Not only that, a large segment of the working population will actually no longer be paying any income taxes. This means a hefty improvement in the take-home pay of many people.

True, the government will lose heavily from the taxes it will no longer be able to collect from workers and intends to recover them by slapping higher taxes on some other things. Unfortunately, one of these other things happens to be fuel. Slapping higher taxes on fuel is certain to trigger higher prices of almost everything else, raising fears that the gains in income will just be offset by the expense.

Not necessarily. Just because a person now has more money to spend does not mean he has to go and spend everything. He will still need to spend of course, just as he always had, even long before TRAIN. But what those who fear the consequences of TRAIN have failed to consider is the fact that nothing has happened that would take away from the person his free will.

It is still all up to the individual person to squander all his income gains on goods whose prices have risen as a result of tax trade-off that TRAIN induced, or seize the opportunity to improve on his fiscal management and discipline that, interestingly, TRAIN also offers. For example, sweetened drinks will now cost higher. But nowhere does it say you have to continue buying them. You can switch to something healthier like water and actually be better off than before.

Or you can quell the urge to buy the new car you have been dreaming of buying if only you can. Well, maybe now you can. But do you have to? If it is now more expensive, then maybe you don't have to. So maybe you can continue walking, which is good for you. And in doing so you avoid adding one more cause of pollution and traffic. You see, it is all in the glass. Either you see it...oh well, you know the rest.

The point is, we all need to accept two inescapable things: We will always be paying taxes. And prices will always go higher. So the inevitable reality is that even if income taxes have not been lowered, prices will still be going up. Maybe not as big because of TRAIN but they will still be as big eventually and will only get bigger. Isn't it great therefore to enjoy a little tax cut to go with the inevitable high prices? We never had tax cuts before. We may never have one again.