AN INSATIABLE GREED FOR TAX

None else but insatiable greed for tax lies behind the administration's unbridled desire for a P60-Billion increase in the sin taxes.  A recent report says the government has watered-down its incremental sin-tax take to P40-Billion.  Let me repeat, INCREMENTAL, meaning an additional tax of P60/P40 billion over and what the cigarette and alcohol companies have been taxed before.

For heaven's sake, that is the most callous, the most unconscionable expression of greed I have heard in all my 73 years in Planet Earth.  Consider this:  A recent business magazine reports that the top 50 corporations in the Philippines have posted an aggregate, repeat: aggregate, net income of P134.0 billion.  None of the cigarette or liquor companies in the country is even included in that least.  According to Sen. Angara in a recent television interview with  Karen Davila in ABS-CBN's  "Headstart," the local cigarette and liquor industry is netting only P12.0 Billion annually.  And imagine that the new sin tax law is yet intending to reduce cigarette and liquor gross sales, and hence net income,  by nobody knows how much.  Alas, if that which this government wants is not GREED in its absolute superlative degree, I do not know what is. 

The government's greed for tax money becomes even more condemnable as soon as we begin to think that PNoy has already included that incremental P60-Billon sin-tax take in the government's budget for next year.  Of course, that should most particularly delight Finance Secretary Purisima and BIR chief Henares because they are expecting that with that new revenue their tax collection figures next year could improve.
Tax collections per se, maybe yes.  But budget deficits, NEVER.  Since when, may I ask, has this government ever been able to balance its budget after the passage of a new tax law?  Has the VAT law, for example, ever achieved that?  Definitely not!  I really doubt if our Finance managers realize the fact that none of them has ever predicted accurately what the government expects to receive from a new tax law.  Chances are, they would even overstate the predictions so that they could justify as much newer budget expenditures as possible, in turn to finally end up with budget deficits very much higher than they had been before a new tax law is passed.  And that, without doubt, is what is likely going to happen in the aftermath of the new sin-tax law.  That is the JINX this government has never been immune from since time immemorial!

It is certainly not that I am for smoking.  Of course, not.  I used to smoke nearly three packs a day before I stopped this high school habit of mine only less that five years ago.  But for me, the single biggest antidote against this habit -- nay, this abominable vice -- is self-discipline.  And the best example of self-discipline in a more or less national scale could only come from a country's very own leaders.  But how can that be possible in a country whose highest leader, PNoy, keeps saying: "I really want to tax cigarettes to extinction, but I cannot stop smoking!"  Alas, if this country's top leader do not know how to discipline himself against continuing with an abominable vice, how can he impose discipline against graft and corruption into his ranks in the government service?  Call it motherhood statement, but it still remains that self-discipline is every true leader's most essential qualification.  PNoy says if he stops smoking there will be nothing to help him docompress?  How laughable!  Alas, does that apply only to himself and not to every Filipino in that habit?  Isn't he then virtually saying: "magsitigil kayo sa inyong biso, ako hindi, presidente yata ako!"

At any rate, I tend to maintain that extremely high prices of cigarettes and liquors can't  really give a significant dent on people's  smoking habit.  Look at shabu.  It does not only command the most prohibitive price in the market place; it is also illegal and one may be jailed for using it.  But let's be honest, indeed, more and more are being hooked to drugs day in and day out in our midst and times.  That's where a vice differs from a habit.

Yes, let's adjust our existing sin taxes.  But as Recto says, let's be realistic.  And it is definitely unrealistic for government to tax the cigarette and liquor industry with an increment that is nearly five times what it has been netting annually on the average.  Not only unrealistic, also extremely insensitive! Do some extents, aren't we killing the goose that lays the golden eggs?