Senate's 'watered down' sin tax bill a disappoinment ? BIR's ...

The Senate?s ?watered down? version of the sin tax bill ? a measure to restructure excise tax on tobacco and alcohol products ? is a big disappointment, Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares said Thursday.
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?Our Secretary of Health had already said they were very disappointed? Those statements basically reflect how I feel,? Henares told reporters on the sidelines of case filling at the Department of Justice. ?I don?t have to say more than that.?
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Henares, who heads the government?s top revenue collection agency, noted the additional tax take from the measure would go to the Department of Health, not state coffers.

The Aquino administration will push for the amendments to the sin tax measure as the committee report will still be tackled on the Senate floor. ?We?re going to advocate [for the P60 billion]. It will still go to plenary,? accordign to the BIR chief.
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?It is a health measure? Whatever is collected from the sin tax? lahat ay mapupunta sa health,? the BIR chief said.
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?Kung ang nakokolekta natin sa excise tax sa sigarilyo ay P45 billion, pero ang medical expenditures ay P144 billion?? Henares noted, saying government would be ahead in terms of revenues versus expenditures ?kung walang maninigarilyo...?
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The bureau collects around P60 billion in excise taxes from tobacco and alcohol products and, through the new sin tax measure, the executive department expects to add another P60 billion.
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Last July, the House of Representatives approved its version of the measure ? HB 5727 or An Act Restructuring the Excise Tax on Alcohol and Tobacco Products ? in a 210-to-21 vote with five abstentions.
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HB 5727 is expected to generate up to P30 billion in additional revenues, and the Senate version is expected to raise P15 billion to P20 billion.
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?I had hope that I would not be disappointed. But I was ready to be disappointed,? said Henares.

She said employees and officials from both the Departments of Health and Finance and the BIR put in a lot of hard work to provide all the data that Sen. Ralph Recto needed to come up with a better committee report.

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?I don't think that Senator Recto can deny that the BIR and the DOF have extended all the cooperation, all the assistance, all the data he wanted, that's why there's a lot of people who were, to put it mildly, were disappointed. They put in hours of work until the wee hours of the morning and a lot of them felt that they were betrayed,? the BIR chief noted.

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?I was inloved in many reform measures. This one is 14 years in the making. This is one of the most difficult reforms. I had hope that? [the Senate version would] be different,? she added.
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The Health Department earlier said the sin tax bill crafted by the executive branch could boost the universal health program by 43 percent. ? VS, GMA News

Source: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/277850/economy/finance/senates-watered-down-sin-tax-bill-a-disappoinment-mdash-birs-henares

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