Solon assures passage of sin tax measure

Representative Hermilando Mandanas has pushed anew for updating the 15-year-old matrix of prices that serves as basis for computing taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. He assured the passage of House Bill 3059 at the committee level by the end of May. Mandanas, House of Representatives ways and means committee chairman, said the bill, when it becomes law, can increase revenues on cigarette excise taxes by P25 billion to P30 billion a year. The Aquino administration has proposed changing the brackets for computing the taxes on cigarettes. The Department of Finance also wants the computations indexed to inflation. “We are not seeking to impose new taxes here as laid out earlier by President Benigno Aquino III. We are merely correcting a clearly anomalous system of taxation," Mandanas said at the Balitaan sa Aloha Hotel public forum in Manila on Wednesday. — ELR/VS, GMA News