Former PACC chief Greco Belgica (Photo from an RTVM video)
MANILA, Philippines – Former Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) Chairman Greco Belgica said Wednesday he would push for the removal of the real property tax if he wins as senator in the May elections, as he also urged the government to scrap the value added tax (VAT) on fuel.
“Paaalis ko po ang amilyar dahil it’s really bad na binayaran mo na ang lupa mo, binili mo na lupa mo, babayaran mo pa sa gobyerno taon-taon ang amilyar. Pag di mo binayaran ‘yung amilyar kukuhanin ng gobyerno sa’yo ‘yung lupa mo, ibebenta sa iba,” he said at the online Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum.
(I will push for the removal of the real property tax because paying for that tax to the government every year is really bad when you already purchased that land. If you don’t pay real property tax, the government will take it from you and sell it to other people.)
“Paano naging sa gobyerno ‘yung lupa eh hindi naman nila binili? Paano naging sa gobyerno ang lupa eh wala pang gobyerno may lupa na?” he explained.
(How come the land belongs to the government when it did not buy the property? How come it belongs to the government when we have land already even before the government existed?)
The former PACC official noted that other countries do not collect real property tax from its residents.
Meanwhile, Belgica also urged the government to scrap VAT on fuel amid the rising oil prices.
“I am also proposing to remove VAT. Alisin na po ‘yang VAT na ‘yan sa gasoline dahil nagpapataas lang po ‘yan ng presyo (We should remove the VAT on gasoline because it only raises the price), so that the government can cushion the effect of this Ukraine-Russian war that is really affecting the whole world,” he said.
Belgica proposed two options on how the government can recover the losses from scrapping these taxes.
“So where do we get all the money? Two things or two places to get this money. Number one, plug out all tax leakages. As I’ve said, convert it to the flat tax like many other progressive nations like China, Russia, Hong Kong, the Middle East,” he said.
“Number two, lower down corruption… Dahil sabi nga ng Ombudsman, 20 percent daw po ng budget natin ang minimum mawawala sa (The Ombudsman said 20 percent of the budget will be lost to corruption this year), so that’s around P1 trillion po for this year,” he added. Jericho Zafra , INQUIRER.net intern
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