Tweet me!Business mirror TUESDAY, 01 JUNE 2010
REELECTED Sen. Pia Cayetano slammed the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) for using the newly signed Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010 (Esca) as an alibi for government’s revenue losses and justify raising the value-added tax (VAT) to 15 percent from 12 percent.
“The outgoing administration should stop using our senior citizens as its scapegoat for the shortcomings of our revenue collection agencies,” Cayetano said. “This tack is not only baseless, but also unfair.”
In a statement, the senator debunked claims by Neda Director for Policy and Planning Dennis Arroyo that the gains of the 12- percent VAT were wiped out by recent laws that granted tax relief, including Esca and the exemption of minimum-wage earners from income tax.
“The IRR [Internal Rules and Regulations] of Esca is still being finalized and so not a single peso has yet been taken away from government’s VAT collections to benefit any of our senior citizens,” she said.
Cayetano said Neda’s statement was “misleading and, coming from the government’s top economic research and planning agency, disturbingly lacks supporting facts.”
She noted that RA 9994 was signed into law on February 16 and would not be in effect until after its IRR are finalized and published next month.
“But what’s even more disturbing and unacceptable is [Neda’s] use of our senior citizens to justify hiking the VAT rate from 12 percent and 15 percent,” she said. She said that instead of blaming the elderly and minimum-wage earners, the government should focus on improving tax-collection efficiency. She cited the government’s failure to collect P115.9 billion in potential tax and non-tax revenues last year, which contributed to the ballooning budget deficit which hit P198.5 billion by the end of 2009.
