SENATOR Joel Villanueva has cautioned the administration’s economic managers against having the hands of lawmakers tied into approving its pet tax reform measure.
Based on the projection presented by the economic managers, Villanueva said the government expects an additional revenue of around P413 billion in 2018, which is also the expected increase in tax collection for the same year.
“This suggests that 99.9 percent of the projected increase in our revenues for next year will be sourced from the additional taxes we expect to collect,” he said.
“The P413-billion increase could mark the biggest jump in tax collection, in nominal terms, in our country’s history,” the senator added.
Meanwhile, next year’s projected disbursement is at P3.36 trillion, which translates into an increase of P455 billion from this year’s programmed disbursement at P2.9 trillion.
Villanueva said the only logical conclusion is that the bulk of the P413-billion additional taxes the government expects to collect in 2018 will depend on the shape of the tax reform package that Congress will pass this year.
The Department of Finance estimates that at least P133.8 billion in additional revenues will be collected once the proposed Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) is passed.
“At the most ‘optimistic’ outcome of the TRAIN, you would still be P240 billion short of the targeted P413 billion additional revenue. How does the DOF plan to generate this additional money?” Villanueva said.
“If the implementation and attainment of targets for Build Build Build projects principally hinge on financing or funding support from the revenues to be derived from the executive’s version of the TRAIN, then we might have a scenario where the agency programs lack funding next year. Congress then gets blamed for bigger deficits because we did not follow the executive,” the senator added.