Health advocates hit measly hike in tobacco tax

Health advocates on Friday urged President Duterte to veto the tobacco tax rate in the proposed Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) bill, with its first package ratified in Congress on Wednesday and now up for the President’s signature.

Representatives from several sectors, including health, economy, youth and urban poor, assailed its supposed “premature insertion,” which would raise the excise tax on tobacco products by a mere P1.30 per pack.

Jo-Ann Diosana, senior economist of the group Action for Economic Reforms, said the small increment, compared to their proposal to double the rate, would only favor cigarette companies.

“Both versions of the Senate and the House of Representatives of the TRAIN bill did not include a tobacco tax provision,” she told a press briefing in Quezon City.

“But when they went to the bicameral conference committee to reconcile the two versions, tobacco tax was added in the last minute, reportedly because they came up short in the intended revenue to be generated by the bill,” she added. —JHESSET O. ENANO