Senate rushes bill on tax academy

The Senate ways and means committee approved on Monday a measure that seeks to establish a Philippine Tax Academy that will train and develop tax collectors and administrators. Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel F. Zubiri, who presided over the hearing on Senate Bill 3206, said they would immediately come up with a committee report and schedule the Palace-certified measure on second and third reading. Senator Panfilo M. Lacson, ways and means committee chairman, is in Australia. The bill was certified as urgent last Jan. 29, a move meant to enable lawmakers to simultaneously approve it on second and third reading on the same day and do away with the required three-day interval in between approvals. Zubiri said he would ask the House of Representatives to adopt the Senate version so they could skip the bicameral conference committee that will reconcile differing provisions with House Bill (HB) 7134, which is up for second and third reading at the House. He added that they would fast-track the bill's ratification on Wednesday. "It is high time that we have a tax academy to come up with an efficient system of tax collection," Zubiri said. But while the House vowed to rush the passage and ratification of the measure with only two remaining session days before lawmakers go on a break for the campaign period, House Majority Leader Arthur D. Defensor, Sr. said HB 7134 was yet to be scheduled for plenary approval. "We have not yet received word from the Senate that they had passed it at the committee level," he said. — Bernard U. Allauigan, BusinessWorld