Wala pang plano sa ngayon ang Department of Finance (DOF) na isulong ang Luxury Tax o Wealth Tax.
Sa budget briefing ng DBCC, natanong ni Nueva Ecija Representative Ria Vergara si Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno kung may iba pa bang tax measures ang pamahalaan na hindi regressive o tatamaan ang lahat ng tao, gaya na lamang sana ng Luxury Tax.
Tugon ng kalihim, hindi pa nila kinokonsidera ang Luxury o Wealth Tax.
“Luxury Tax is not part of our proposal at the moment,” ani Diokno.
Punto nito, sa pagsusulong ng buwis, kailangan ikonsidera ang “high yield” o malaking balik at minimal na administrative cost.
Kaya mahihirapan aniya ipatupad ang Luxury Tax dahil maaaring itago lamang ang item gaya ng diamond o sa ibang bansa na lang bumili.
“You know when you propose a tax, one characteristic, one nice property of a tax is that it should give you a high yield on the tax and administrative cost would be very minimal. So you have to consider that say for example if you want to tax diamond, you’ll practically not gonna collect anything. Because that is easy to hide and sometimes when you also try to tax, say luxury good, people will just go abroad and buy it there, not here,” paliwanag ng kalihim.
Sa hiwalay naman na interpelasyon ni Kabataan Party-list Representative Raoul Manuel, tinanong nito si Diokno kung wala bang plano ang ahensya na patawan ng buwis ang mga mayayaman.
Kakaunti lamang kasi aniya sila at malaki ang maaaring kitain sa Wealth Tax.
Pero paliwanag ni Diokno, mas pinipili nila na buwisan ang consumption o yung binibili ng isang indibidwal kaysa sa income o sweldo.
“Somebody who doesn’t earn anything but he consumes a lot, he should be taxed… I don’t think that is a progressive tax measure when you tax billionaires. Iilan lang yun di ba? And then pampapogi lang yun. But the tax yield from a billionaire’s tax is much less than general consumption tax,” dagdag ng Finance Secretary. | ulat ni Kathleen Jean Forbes
