Congress not scrapping tax on vape after all

Congress will not scrap a proposed tax on e-cigarettes after all, and would even raise the excise higher than what was originally planned, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda said on Thursday.

A day earlier, Salceda, chair of the ways and means committee of the House of Representatives, said lawmakers would be compelled to scrap the planned excise on e-cigarettes after President Duterte banned their importation and use in public places.

“We will retain it, but given the logic of the initial reported ban—precautionary principle—we might as well go for a higher rate than P25/ml to P45/ml,” he said in a Viber message to House reporters on Thursday.

The amount is slapped on the e-cigarette juice, or the flavored liquid that contains nicotine.

E-cigarettes warm flavored liquid to produce vapor that is said to be free of the estimated 7,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, but does contain a number of substances that could potentially be harmful.

P1.4B lost revenue

Salceda had warned that if vaping were totally banned, the government would lose some P1.4 billion in potential annual revenue from the excise to be collected from e-cigarettes in a House bill he authored.

He proposed to raise the tax because vapers usually came from higher-income classes.

“The 1 million vape users are almost totally upper middle- to high-income class versus the 23 million smokers with 7 million in the lowest 50 percent,” he said.

Salceda said a new user must spend a “relatively high” amount of at least P1,600.

According to users, the amount includes the price of a vape “pen” and two “pods” containing the e-cigarette juice. Users would spend about P200 to P400 for their weekly liquid nicotine fix.

Law amendments

At the Senate, Sen. Pia Cayetano, chair of the Senate ways and means committee, said she would still pursue the passage of their version of the amendments to the sin tax law that would impose an excise on liquid nicotine and vaping products.

“Taxation, to me, is just a means (or) a tool to help make these products that are harmful less accessible to the vulnerable, especially the youth,” she said.

Critics say that apart from being harmful in themselves, the multiple exotic flavors of e-cigarette liquids appeal particularly to youngsters and risk getting them addicted to nicotine.

The devices have become hugely popular in the past decade, but a rash of vaping-linked deaths and illnesses in the United States is feeding caution about the product, already banned in some places. —WITH A REPORT FROM MARLON RAMOS AND AFP