- Details
- Category: Economy
- Published on Thursday, 20 December 2012 19:53
- Written by Marvyn N. Benaning / Contributor
BAYAN Muna Reps. Neri J. Colmenares and Teddy Casiño filed this week House Bill 6768, which seeks to exempt condominium dues and housing association dues from income tax and value-added tax (VAT).
Colmenares and Casiño argued that by tacking on these taxes to homeowners, the government will be increasing the cost of housing and discourage people from buying or acquiring their own homes.
Casiño said the bill is a response to the recent attempt of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), through Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) 65-2012, to impose income tax and VAT on association dues including those from socialized housing and low-cost housing homeowners.
“The executive department always have a simple solution to its budgetary needs and its chronic fiscal deficit—taxation. [The] government does not seem to notice that the BIR and the Bureau of Customs continue to fail in meeting their revenue targets due to corruption and inefficiency, that billions of pesos in income are lost due to sweetheart deals with foreign investors and favored cronies, that hundreds of billions of pesos in public funds are lost in corrupt transactions and projects, that billions more are lost because of inefficiency, incompetence and red tape, and another round of hundreds of billions are lost in the payment of debts that were spent on overpriced projects that are crippled by corruption and irregularities,” said Colmenares.
“A government that has failed to address misplaced profligacy, incompetence, inefficiency and corruption has no moral authority to impose taxes on the people already crippled by rising prices and unemployment. This lack of moral authority is never more pronounced than government attempts to tax a basic need of the people [such as] the constitutional right to shelter, housing,” Colmenares added.
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