Business backs tax reform program
The Duterte administration’s Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP) received more support from the private sector, with tycoon Lance Gokongwei, the president of diversified conglomerate JG Summit Holdings Inc., joining the cluster of businessmen that seconded the tax scheme.
The first package of the CTRP being pushed by the Department of Finance (DOF) calls for the lowering of personal and corporate income taxes, with the goal of shifting the tax burden to the rich and large taxpayers.
Gokongwei said that in pursuing tax reform, “temporary inconveniences, hiccups and growth pains” are to be expected, but such concerns would not deter him and his fellow large taxpayers in helping ensure the success of the reforms being put in place by the DOF both in tax policy and administration.
“To be considered as partners for change rather than to be treated with suspicion, to be consulted rather than to be threatened, to be given a seat at this table in seeking a just resolution of differences rather than being shut out, this humbles and inspires us no end,” Gokongwei said at the kick-off ceremony of the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) 2017 tax collection drive.
CTRP also includes several revenue-generating measures to offset the losses from the income tax reductions and to raise enough revenues for the government’s unprecedented public investments program.
“When it comes to tax policy and administration, our desire is but simple: first, a streamlined, not-too-burdensome set of procedures and processes that will make tax compliance straightforward and easy,” Gokongwei said
“And second, a tax reform that will be equitable to our wage earners, allow the government to fund vital infrastructure and social services while enabling corporate partners to remain competitive in this global trading order,” he added.
In the event where President Duterte was the guest of honor, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said expanding the scope of the BIR’s Large Taxpayers Service (LTS) is a key component of the tax administration reforms under the Duterte presidency that will complement the proposed overhaul of outdated tax policies to make the system simpler, fairer and more efficient, especially for the poor plus low- and middle-income taxpayers.
Dominguez said his marching orders to the BIR to accomplish this goal is to “go out and find” the other large taxpayers that have managed to avoid the Bureau’s registry so that it could significantly increase its tax effort, which, for the first nine months of 2016 alone reached R891 billion for the LTS, representing a 9.41 percent improvement over the same period in 2015.
The LTS has set a collection goal of R1.152 trillion for this year, which is equivalent to 63 percent of the total BIR target of R1.829 trillion for the entire 2017.
Dominguez said the