SENATE President Pro-Tempore Franklin Drilon Thursday urged the government to push for the review and rationalization of fiscal incentives granted to businesses as a way of increasing government revenue, rather than continue its plan to raise taxes on petroleum products.
Drilon said the Department of Budget and Management, Department of Finance, the Department of Trade and Industry and the country’s economic managers must focus their efforts in supporting the proposed rationalization of tax incentives “to generate additional revenues to help offset projected dip in revenues that may arise from income tax cuts.”
“I hope our economic managers will work closely with Congress for the long-sought Rationalization of Fiscal Incentives law instead of spending its time on a tax hike on petroleum products that will surely negatively affect our people,” Drilon said.
“If our aim is to increase revenues, then the government should look at reviewing the various laws on the grant of tax incentives and plug the leakages in our tax system,” he added.
Drilon said President Duterte’s economic managers should try to exhaust other means to compensate for the expected foregone revenues from the proposed income tax cut instead of raising the taxes on petroleum products.
“We should not pass the buck and shift the burden to our people,” Drilon said.
Drilon is the author of Senate Bill No. 229 seeking to review the government’s system of granting incentives to business enterprises in the country “to ensure that grant of incentives promotes social and economic benefits to Filipinos.”