Palace: Foes twisting remarks on taxes

By: Nikko Dizon - 9 years ago

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda. FILE PHOTO

Malacañang on Saturday said the election season had allowed President Benigno Aquino III’s critics to “twist” his justification for not being in favor of lowering personal income tax rates.

“We do not want to allow this misinformation, disinformation, to go through because we understand the election season. They say there are a lot of accusations that could be thrown at the government. If it’s true then we will look at it. If it’s a lie, then we will answer it,” presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said over state-run Radyo ng Bayan.

According to Lacierda, Mr. Aquino himself has said that there was a need for a comprehensive review of the tax laws.

“There is a need to review the tax laws but we have to study it in a situation, in an atmosphere, where we can really have an honest-to-goodness debate. Now, everybody is saying, ‘I’m in favor of lowering this, I’m in favor of lowering that’ because it’s campaign season. The elections are near, so you want to get the biggest number of votes [by saying something] that is pleasant to the ears of the electorate,” Lacierda said.

But Lacierda said that as the government, “we have to be responsible.”

“We recognize there’s a concern. We recognize that some people would like to lower the tax rates and we’re saying, ‘we’re all together in this,’” he said.

Critics of the President are urging him to support pending legislation proposing to reduce the personal income tax rates.

But at a recent forum with the foreign press, Mr. Aquino explained anew that lowering income taxes should “not be taken as a singular activity.”

“If there is a reduction in revenue, there has to be compensation elsewhere,” he said, noting that a “compensatory act” would be to increase the value-added tax.

“The end point is you remove something, you add something, then we have a balance. You remove something, you don’t add something, there is an imbalance. That, in turn, might have negative consequences that we would rather not have to undergo,” he said.

The President also said the government was still operating under a budget deficit. “You remove the revenues, you increase the deficit,” he said.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte earlier said he and Senate President Franklin Drilon were planning to seek an audience with the President to convince him to support the measure.

There has been no news about whether or not the meeting would push through.

The income tax reform bill pending in both chambers of Congress proposes to raise the tax exemption ceiling to P150,000 a year and lower the top income tax rate currently pegged at 32 percent.

The bill would also raise from P500,000 to P10 million the trigger for the higher income tax rate and reduce the corporate tax rate from 32 percent to 25 percent.

Legislators supporting the measure said that lowering the income tax rates would give the people more disposable income which would in turn stimulate consumer spending.