IT may not be possible to approve President Rodrigo Duterte’s tax reform package on second reading this Wesdnesday, Ako-Bicol Rep. Rodel Batocabe said Sunday.
Batocabe, president of the Party List Coalition composed of 47 lawmakers, said there is a substantial number of lawmakers opposing the revenue measure that could trigger a rise in the prices of basic goods.
He said while they support many provisions of the tax package bill, they want to scrap a provision lifting the expanded value-added tax exemption on cooperatives.
“A compromise should be reached here because we feel that this will be detrimental to our sector,” said Batocabe.
He said he will file today an amendment to revive the VAT exemption of cooperatives after a majority caucus last May 17.
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Ray Villafuerte, for his part, said the first package of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN), formerly known as the Comprehensive Tax Reform Package (CTRP), could help the Duterte administration accomplish its objective of high and inclusive growth.
Villafuerte said House Bill No. 5636 or TRAIN that consolidated the Department of Finance-backed HB No. 4774 with 54 other tax-related bills, is designed to cut income tax rates for the benefit of low-income workers and help raise revenues to fund the Duterte administration’s expenditure program, lift 6 million Filipinos out of poverty and transform the Philippines into an upper middle-income country by 2022.
Quezon City Rep. Winston Castelo also backed the return of cooperatives’ VAT exemption.
“Let us restore the exemptions on coop and temper the tax on fuel,” he said, noting that these would hurt the poor the most.
Negros Occidental Rep. Alfredo Benitez, head of the 42-strong Visayan bloc, has proposed a provision in the Duterte administration’s tax package seeking an automatic suspension in the implementation of the proposed P6 tax on petroleum products to safeguard the consumers should the price of crude oil hover around $80 per barrel.
“We feel that this is an effective way to protect consumers from erratic prices of petroleum products. There should be a provision for automatic suspension in the implementation of the proposed tax on petroleum products,” he said.
Quirino Rep. Dakila Carlo Cua, chairman of the House committee on ways and means and principal author of TRAIN under House Bill No. 5636, said the measure would be approved on third and final reading before the sine die adjournment of the first regular session of the 17th Congress at the end of the month.