DIE HARD III / Herman Tiu Laurel / May 7, 2014 / Daily Tribune
Last May 4, the newspapers reported an International Monetary Fund (IMF) advice to the Philippines: Widen the Philippine government’s tax revenue base.
Shanaka Jayanath Peiris, the IMF’s resident representative to the country, pushed for legislation to achieve this widening of the tax base “the sooner, the better.”
Peiris told reporters, “The tax to GDP (gross domestic product) ratio of the Philippines is still very low compared to other countries in the same level of development, and so for the tax to GDP to increase a lot, you probably need to broaden the base not only by administration but also changes in policies.”
Is high tax to GDP ratio the key to investments and progress? No. In the Philippines, the key is to lower high power rates to the region’s average. Peiris dispenses the usual IMF generalizations to divert from the real economic issues — and from alternatives that guarantee economic, industrial, and employment development.
The more important question is where our taxes go. If they’re not going to investment in the “hard industries” and public services, such as basic agro-industrial support projects (import-substituting fertilizers, steel, energy, and other strategic industries), but only into needless debt service, public services privatization funding, or consumer products-addiction imports, then no development can happen.
The IMF wants to tax every sector as much as it can and as much as taxpayers can stand. IMF gofer Kim Henares started to get the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) serious in taxing professionals such as doctors and lawyers, though her success beyond the “shame campaign” is doubtful.
My family’s recent visits to the doctors were still not covered by receipts nor was the advice rendered by lawyers’ offices. For years, the various BIR chiefs, who have been “seconded” from the IMF, have salivated over extending taxation to taxi drivers, street vendors, as well as tricycle drivers and operators. The latest news release of the IMF is a reminder to the government of its desire to tax these sectors.
The IMF wants to extract taxes from the “informal economy” which comprises at least 61 percent of the economy, or as high as 80 percent — even if the informal sector is already heavily taxed. The expanded Value Added Tax (eVAT) is already shouldered by small vendors or drivers whenever they purchase necessities for their micro-livelihood, such as cooking oil for their banana-cue or gasoline for their tricycles. Still, the IMF and Henares want to tax the income of these hand-to-mouth self-employed workers. Philippine eVAT is at 12 percent, compared to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia at 10 percent; Singapore and Thailand at 7 percent; and Taiwan at 5 percent. We have the highest corporate income tax and among the highest personal income tax.
The IMF is a US creation, one of the spokes of the global financial hub that turns the wheels of today’s financial world. It is a world already exposed as the fountainhead of corruption in the 2008 Wall Street financial collapse, then propped up by public tax increases and extractions by austerity to fund the Quantitative Easing policy; London Interbank Offered Rate manipulation; and the multi-billion fines on Citibank, JP Morgan, and HSBC for cheating depositors and investors, both private and institutional.
The Hub of the hub is the Bank of International Settlements, where policies are made for progressively centralizing all banking in the hands of the few Western banking families.
When we read that Filipinos admire the US government more than the US population itself, we get exasperated. How dumb can the Filipino people get?
At a media kapihan where the moderator, panel, and audience focused all their rage against China’s alleged “aggression” and pinned their frustrated hope on Obama, I countered by explaining the ceaseless political and economic abuses, as well as the oppression and exploitation of this country by the US. I lamented the “bobong Pinoy,” but the audience thought I referred only to BS Aquino and Malacañang, even though I was clearly referring to the vast majority of Filipinos, including many of them at that kapihan, still admiring and relying on the US.
Twenty-five years ago, James Fallows wrote that which Filipinos have is a damaged culture. He was being kind. Filipinos suffer a national psychosis — one that leads to loss of contact with reality, which makes them unable to see that the US is punishing them economically, financially, and politically without end, and one that makes them even love their tormentor.
How does one cure this insanity—induced by a cultural DNA mutated by 100 years old of US and neocolonialism, by mainstream media’s hallucinatory reportage, alongside delusionary TV and cinema, pitiful Americanized FM radio, as well as health and wealth religious groups, ad nausea? Shock therapy can be helpful. The IMF was behind the original VAT, then the eVAT (now the highest in Southeast Asia), which raised the cost of fuel, electricity, food, medicine, and other commodities in the Asian region. Let another round of spikes in these prices shock the people again.
(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “Pork and DAP exposés” with Sandra Cam, Argee Guevarra et al.; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)
Last May 4, the newspapers reported an International Monetary Fund (IMF) advice to the Philippines: Widen the Philippine government’s tax revenue base.
Shanaka Jayanath Peiris, the IMF’s resident representative to the country, pushed for legislation to achieve this widening of the tax base “the sooner, the better.”
Peiris told reporters, “The tax to GDP (gross domestic product) ratio of the Philippines is still very low compared to other countries in the same level of development, and so for the tax to GDP to increase a lot, you probably need to broaden the base not only by administration but also changes in policies.”
Is high tax to GDP ratio the key to investments and progress? No. In the Philippines, the key is to lower high power rates to the region’s average. Peiris dispenses the usual IMF generalizations to divert from the real economic issues — and from alternatives that guarantee economic, industrial, and employment development.
The more important question is where our taxes go. If they’re not going to investment in the “hard industries” and public services, such as basic agro-industrial support projects (import-substituting fertilizers, steel, energy, and other strategic industries), but only into needless debt service, public services privatization funding, or consumer products-addiction imports, then no development can happen.
The IMF wants to tax every sector as much as it can and as much as taxpayers can stand. IMF gofer Kim Henares started to get the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) serious in taxing professionals such as doctors and lawyers, though her success beyond the “shame campaign” is doubtful.
My family’s recent visits to the doctors were still not covered by receipts nor was the advice rendered by lawyers’ offices. For years, the various BIR chiefs, who have been “seconded” from the IMF, have salivated over extending taxation to taxi drivers, street vendors, as well as tricycle drivers and operators. The latest news release of the IMF is a reminder to the government of its desire to tax these sectors.
The IMF wants to extract taxes from the “informal economy” which comprises at least 61 percent of the economy, or as high as 80 percent — even if the informal sector is already heavily taxed. The expanded Value Added Tax (eVAT) is already shouldered by small vendors or drivers whenever they purchase necessities for their micro-livelihood, such as cooking oil for their banana-cue or gasoline for their tricycles. Still, the IMF and Henares want to tax the income of these hand-to-mouth self-employed workers. Philippine eVAT is at 12 percent, compared to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia at 10 percent; Singapore and Thailand at 7 percent; and Taiwan at 5 percent. We have the highest corporate income tax and among the highest personal income tax.
The IMF is a US creation, one of the spokes of the global financial hub that turns the wheels of today’s financial world. It is a world already exposed as the fountainhead of corruption in the 2008 Wall Street financial collapse, then propped up by public tax increases and extractions by austerity to fund the Quantitative Easing policy; London Interbank Offered Rate manipulation; and the multi-billion fines on Citibank, JP Morgan, and HSBC for cheating depositors and investors, both private and institutional.
The Hub of the hub is the Bank of International Settlements, where policies are made for progressively centralizing all banking in the hands of the few Western banking families.
When we read that Filipinos admire the US government more than the US population itself, we get exasperated. How dumb can the Filipino people get?
At a media kapihan where the moderator, panel, and audience focused all their rage against China’s alleged “aggression” and pinned their frustrated hope on Obama, I countered by explaining the ceaseless political and economic abuses, as well as the oppression and exploitation of this country by the US. I lamented the “bobong Pinoy,” but the audience thought I referred only to BS Aquino and Malacañang, even though I was clearly referring to the vast majority of Filipinos, including many of them at that kapihan, still admiring and relying on the US.
Twenty-five years ago, James Fallows wrote that which Filipinos have is a damaged culture. He was being kind. Filipinos suffer a national psychosis — one that leads to loss of contact with reality, which makes them unable to see that the US is punishing them economically, financially, and politically without end, and one that makes them even love their tormentor.
How does one cure this insanity—induced by a cultural DNA mutated by 100 years old of US and neocolonialism, by mainstream media’s hallucinatory reportage, alongside delusionary TV and cinema, pitiful Americanized FM radio, as well as health and wealth religious groups, ad nausea? Shock therapy can be helpful. The IMF was behind the original VAT, then the eVAT (now the highest in Southeast Asia), which raised the cost of fuel, electricity, food, medicine, and other commodities in the Asian region. Let another round of spikes in these prices shock the people again.
(Tune in to “Sulo ng Pilipino” on 1098 AM, dwAD, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m.; catch GNN’s Talk News TV with HTL on Destiny Cable Channel 8, SkyCable Channel 213, and www.gnntv-asia.com, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m., this week on “Pork and DAP exposés” with Sandra Cam, Argee Guevarra et al.; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0917-8658664)
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