THE Senate is poised to review options to suspend certain impositions in the Duterte administration’s Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law even as senators weigh the cost-benefits of providing relief to overburdened taxpayers.
This was confirmed over the weekend by Senate President Vicente Sotto III, noting that the TRAIN law passed by Congress contains such a provision mandating the Department of Finance to conduct timely review to assess the need to suspend impositions in the revenue-raising measure.
“There is really a provision there, and I’m sure the DOF knows this. They’re studying whether or not to suspend and they will share this with us in our next hearing,” Senate President Sotto on Sunday.
He added that former Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III, who now chairs the Committee on Trade and Commerce, is expected to convene a public hearing together with the Committee on Finance, to clarify the matter in aid of crafting remedial legislation, if needed.
“The Senate cannot disregard the issue,” Sotto said, adding “it is easy to say: suspend the TRAIN, but there are many beneficial programs there.”
For instance, the Senate President said the upcoming review will also enable senators to verify the basis for complaints that the oil tax is “excessive.” “They said the levy on petroleum is ‘excessive,’ and we will now have a chance to study that. I recently spoke to Finance Secretary [Carlos] Dominguez and it was learned that even in January, just before the TRAIN took effect, other factors were already at play. For example, the dollar kept gaining and this affected us even if we were doing nothing,” said Sotto, speaking mostly in Filipino.
Sotto admitted the senators also welcome the opportunity to review which of the tax law’s provisions are, indeed, excessive and need to be suspended, as provided in the TRAIN law.
“But only the [excessive] provision, not the entire TRAIN,” the new Senate President hastened to clarify.
If proposed remedies are found to be still unacceptable, he said senators will consider amendments when they take up the remedial legislation “in TRAIN 2,” citing as an example the clamor to “cut the value-added tax to 10 percent.”