Value added tax on toll fees
(Conclusion)
THE enumeration of affected services is not exclusive. By qualifying “services” with the words “all kinds,” Congress has given the term “services” an all-encompassing meaning.
The listing of specific services are intended to illustrate how pervasive and broad is the VAT’s reach rather than establish concrete limits to its application.
Thus, every activity that can be imagined as a form of “service” rendered for a fee should be deemed included unless some provision of law especially excludes it.
Thus, among others, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue did not usurp legislative prerogative or expand the VAT law’s coverage when she sought to impose VAT on tollway operations.
Section 108(A) of the Code clearly states that services of all other franchise grantees are subject to VAT, except as may be provided under Section 119 of the Code.
Tollway operators are not among the franchise grantees subject to franchise tax under the latter provision.
Neither are their services among the VAT-exempt transactions under Section 109 of the Code.
If the legislative intent was to exempt tollway operations from VAT, as petitioners so strongly allege, then it would have been well for the law to clearly say so.
Tax exemptions must be justified by clear statutory grant and based on language in the law too plain to be mistaken.
But as the law is written, no such exemption obtains for tollway operators.
The VAT on franchise grantees has been in the statute books since 1994 when R.A. 7716 or the Expanded Value-Added Tax law was passed.
It is only now, however, that the executive has earnestly pursued the VAT imposition against tollway operators.
The executive exercises exclusive discretion in matters pertaining to the implementation and execution of tax laws. Consequently, the executive is more properly suited to deal with the immediate and practical consequences of the VAT imposition.
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