The government may soon collect a P20-per-kilo excise tax on single-use plastics after the House Committee on Ways and Means approved on Wednesday, Aug. 17, a measure seeking to impose a tax on the use of plastics.
The measure “seeks to impose an excise tax of Twenty Pesos (P20.00) for every kilogram of plastic bag removed from the place of production or released from the custody of the Bureau of Customs (BOC).”
“The allocation of the proceeds, which is estimated at P1 billion per year, will be used for the implementation of the solid waste management,” House Ways and Means Chair Joey Sarte Salceda of Albay 2nd District said.
House Bill 9171 or the Excise Tax on Plastic Bags will slap a P20-per-kilo tax on single-use plastic bags in supermarkets, malls, shops, stores, sales outlets, and other establishments.
Earlier, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno expressed support for the measure to address worsening climate change and pollution issues.
The Department of Finance (DOF) said the government could collect an additional P923 million in revenues if the measure is enacted into law.
READ: Diokno lists proposed measures to speed up PH economic recovery
The House tax panel also passed the Ease of Paying Taxes (EOPT) Act, which will reduce documentary requirements, allow taxpayers to file their returns in any revenue district office, and remove the annual taxpayer registration fee.
It will also institute a taxpayer bill of rights and designate a taxpayer advocate office.
“The bill aims to simplify tax filing and payment and address burdensome tax compliance, which affects our small and medium enterprises and turns off our investors. We hope that this could reduce the tax gap, estimated to be P909 billion in 2018,” Salceda said.
“The EOPT seeks to segment taxpayers, to simplify the forms and requirements for small taxpayers; allow filing and paying of taxes to be portable; harmonize the documentation for substantiating VAT credits, and institutionalize a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.”
The panel also created the technical working groups for the Mining Fiscal Regime and the Passive Income and Financial Intermediaries Taxation Act (PIFITA), which the panel is expected to take up next week.
This is the first step on the House panel’s commitment to passing all the priority measures of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and the DOF this month.
“We will finish the measures. That is our commitment to the President and to the House leadership. The committee will work harder than it did last Congress to meet the President’s clearly articulated SONA macro-fiscal goals,” the lawmaker said.
“Hopefully, by next week, the House tax panel is done with everything, so we can proceed with our own tax measures as well as the administrative and oversight matters,” Salceda added.