TOBACCO farmers on Wednesday slammed the proposal of Senator Manny Pacquiao to raise the tobacco excise tax by 100 percent.
“We have barely gotten back on our feet from the blow of RA 10351, and now Senator Pacquiao wants to deliver the knock-out pinch to our poor farmers,” PhilTobacco Growers Association leader Saturnino Distor said in a letter sent to Senator Sonny Angara.
Angara is the chairman of the Senate ways and means committee, which is leading the Senate hearings on the imposition of new taxes.
Distor said tobacco farmers were still struggling with the fall in demand for tobacco because of the 340-percent excise tax introduced in 2013.
He said tobacco taxes would automatically increase by 4 percent annually.
With the huge increases, he said, tobacco production had fallen from 68 million kilograms in 2013 to 52 million kilograms in 2015 based on the report of the National Tobacco Administration.
In December 2016 the PTGA, which represents 50,000 tobacco farmers nationwide, opposed a move by the House to introduce a big increase in the tobacco tax through House Bill 4144.
But the bill did not advance when it reached the Senate.
“We trust that the honorable and learned members of the Senate are more circumspect in studying such proposal,” Distor said.
But he said they found out that Pacquiao had suggested a more radical increase.
“Why is tobacco being targeted again?” said Distor as he pointed out that tobacco excise taxes contributed around P100 billion in 2015, up by P32 billion in 2012.
He said the tobacco sector was giving more than its share of tax revenues for the government.
