Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda shared on Saturday, July 23 the best way to tax rich Filipinos.
(Office of Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda)
This, as the economist-solon bared in a statement that he favored the imposition of wealth taxes as a way to help government raise funds for public services.
"I am strongly in favor of taxes on the wealthy. After all, the Constitution explicitly requires that our tax system be progressive, and therefore bearing more heavily on the wealthy," said Salceda, who is poised to retain the chairmanship of the House Committee on Ways and Means once the 19th Congress starts.
"The best way to tax the wealthy is either through their immovable wealth (land), or through their conspicuous consumption," the Bicolano said.
"For the first manner, we need to find ways to properly value and tax high-value land through the Real Property Valuation and Assessment Reform Act. At the same time, we need to balance the impacts on smaller landowners. I will be proposing amendments to that bill that will provide relief to agricultural landowners while taxing high-value land in the proper time," he said.
The veteran solon also aims to incentivize the use high-value lands, since they should be induced to generate an income to meet its tax obligations.
"On the second manner, we need to expand the non-essential goods tax under Section 50 of the tax code, and expand it to other obvious luxury items such as luxury watches, expensive bags, and high fashion. We can also raise the rate from 20 percent to 25 percent," Salceda said.
"The luxury goods market in the Philippines is P71 billion in revenues annually. That should raise between P12 to 18 billion annually. Removing the excise tax exemption on pickup trucks and the tax discount on expensive hybrid cars, is also something I am looking at," he explained.
"On income, there may be room to adjust the top marginal tax rate to 40 percent for those earning above P15 million, but given how easy it is to do compensation in the form of stock options and other non-cash methods, I suspect it will not yield very significant revenues," Salceda further said.
If anything, he said he is skeptical about raising taxes on capital assets and financial wealth, "because that is effectively a tax on investments".
"We need investments because they create jobs and provide the financing needed for private infrastructure and services. So, wealth taxes with these assets as the base might hurt the economy," he noted.