the real boss of the philippines is assured thatevat will be enforced no matter if the poor die from hunger and the middle class becomes poor
- From: "ebak" <socculturefilipino@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 29 Oct 2005 17:30:06 -0700
World Bank is assured EVAT will be enforced
By WILLIAM B. DEPASUPIL, The Manila Times Reporter
The expanded value-added tax law (EVAT) will be carried out starting
November 1 as scheduled, Malacañang said Saturday, but there will be
sufficient safety nets to help poor families likely to be hit hard when
the cost of transport, services, fuel, power, food and basic
commodities goes up.
Among the safety-net measures, the President's spokesman and press
secretary, Ignacio Bunye, said, is the deployment of government teams
that will ensure traders do not unscrupulously abuse the EVAT and raise
their prices beyond the actual cost of the new tax exaction.
Bunye said officers of the Department of Trade and Industry, in
coordination with local government-unit officials and agents, will
closely monitor how retailers and other traders are raising prices.
The DTI and LGU men will always be on guard to take immediate action
against abusive traders and businessmen who might use the law "as a
cloak to take advantage of the buying public."
Januaria de la Verga y Quilloy, a mother of four in Pasay and former
aide to a barangay capitana, said the LGUs at the barangay cannot do
much even if they "monitor and see that the market vendors and
sari-sari stores have raised prices beyond what is necessary because of
the VAT."
"We have no power over the storeowners," de la Verga Quilloy said.
"Besides, many of them are also barangay officials themselves."
The World Bank on Friday gave a reminder to the Arroyo administration
that it should not delay implementation of the VAT. WB country manager
Joachim von Amsberg urged the government to resist pressure to delay
the second stage of the VAT law. He said the government must insist on
the 12-percent increased VAT collection next year, despite any
continuing increase in the price of oil in the world market.
Showing the Palace's displeasure over the WB's reminder, Bunye said
there was no need for the bank to remind or advise the government about
it, "because President Arroyo knows it is needed to improve our fiscal
position and for us to get additional funding from abroad for basic
services."
"So there's no doubt that it will be implemented by the President,"
Bunye said emphatically.
He admitted that there would be "birth pains" in the implementation of
the VAT. But, he said, repeating a point Mrs. Arroyo had said some day
before, that the long-term benefits would far outweigh the initial
sufferings the people will have to bear.
The President has also said that despite the political crisis, the
country's economy has performed very well.
Global confidence in the Philippines, Mrs. Arroyo says in her speeches,
is expected to surge with the coming implementation of the EVAT law
after the Supreme Court upheld its legality. She said the economy is
"on the takeoff stage," something that all Philippine presidents
without exception had been saying.
The President has the option to raise it next year to 12 percent from
10 percent. This is what the World Bank country manager was referring
to.
The World Bank is most of all concerned with a country's fiscal
position. Philippine budget deficits always worry WB officials. More
tax collections with ensure that the Philippines' escalating budget
deficit will shrink.
.
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