Senators: No new taxes
Senate President Vicente Sotto III has asked the Department of Finance (DOF) not to press Congress for new taxes amid the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, saying the people cannot bear an additional financial burden.
Sotto said other revenueraising bills could be proposed that would not burden ordinary Filipinos.
“Please don’t tax the people. Far too many are bearing the brunt (of the crisis),” Sotto told radio station dzRH yesterday. “Additional taxes that will burden the Filipino,
or the common tao? Now is not the time to impose that.”
Sen. Panfilo Lacson was also uncomfortable with Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III’s push for the passage of pending tax bills in Congress to fund programs to deal with the COVID-19 crisis.
“As they say, there are two things in this world that we cannot avoid: death and taxes. What I’m saying is COVID or not, the DOF has lined up a tax package which they are determined to accomplish,” Lacson said.
While he had some misgivings about the tax package, particularly on Package 1 of the Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion, the senator said he might support revenue measures with amendments “as it has done more good than harm to the country’s economy.”
Meanwhile, Lacson is asking Malacañang to explain clearly and convince Congress that it does not have enough funds for programs to address the COVID-19 crisis as there are unspent appropriations in the 2019 national budget.
He recalled that during the deliberations for the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, economic managers told senators that as of the third quarter last year, there was about P989 billion unspent from the 2019 General Appropriations Act (GAA).
The senator said Budget Secretary Wendel Avisado made a rough estimate of P600 billion still unspent if the fourth quarter was taken into account.
Lacson also pointed out that Congress passed a bill last year authorizing the executive branch to use the 2019 budget until Dec. 31, 2020.
“The President is also right, this (unspent) is not cash. When we pass the GAA, that’s spending authority,” Lacson told radio station dzBB.
“But funds must be available because (the GAA is) a law. That’s why when revenues, when collections of the BIR, BOC, and GOCC and remittances are lacking, we borrow,” he said.