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PHL tax system to be revisited soon — Finance chief


The Philippine tax system needs to be revisited soon after administrative measures to improve tax collection would be put in place, the Finance chief said Friday. At a press briefing after the vin d'honneur in Malacañang, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said government authorities need to "revisit the tax system of the Philippines because there may be taxes that need to be adjusted." Existing taxes may be increased or lowered if the tax system is made more "progressive" sometime "in the future," he added. Purisima said that the government's focus as of the moment is to implement administrative measures that will help improve current revenue collection efforts and reduce cases of tax evasion and smuggling. The government is using externally available data to find anomalies and run after tax evaders and smugglers in order to collect more revenues without imposing new taxes, he said. "We're going to use all the tools available with technology [to track people]. I'm confident that without new taxes, we'd [still] be able to improve collections," Purisima said. After "administrative" measures to improve tax collection have been put in place, government leaders and the private sector will discuss possible adjustments in the tax system, he said. Purisima pointed out, "Once we've improved the system, we will sit down with Congress [and] the private sector, and agree on a better tax system." Major discrepancies Starting this year, the Finance Department is requiring the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to come up with a list of the top 7,000 importers or corporations. The list will be matched with the Bureau of Internal Revenue's list of top 7,000 taxpayers. "Our initial matching shows us that there are major discrepancies. Clearly, if you import a lot, you should also be in the top income taxpayers," said Purisima. Purisima said that the Finance Department will also use market share data — which are used by companies to determine their market position — and industry reports to identify how much taxes should be collected from the companies. "The information is available externally, we just have to have a system where we can use them. And we're going to formalize that," he said. Purisima said the BOC will also come up with many lanes to isolate high-risk transactions. "These are very simple things that were never done but we'll now make it more difficult to evade taxes," he said. Since the Aquino administration stepped in, the government has lodged tax evasion or smuggling cases against several personalities and companies, including oil giant Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. that the BOC accused of defrauding the government of about P24.4 billion in excise and value-added taxes. — JE/OMG, GMANews.TV

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