Press Statement
06 March 2014
The Bureau of Internal Revenue’s ad depicting medical doctors as tax cheats burdening public school teachers shows the Aquino government’s desperation in forcing doctors and Filipinos in general to pay taxes in order to finance corruption, pay the foreign debt, and increase expenditures for the military.
The alleged non-payment by doctors of their taxes, even if considered true for the sake of argument, is not the main burden being borne by public school teachers. The main burden is the government’s refusal to increase subsidy to education so that it can continue funding corruption, payments for the foreign debt, and expenditures for the military. To make the advertisement more accurate, the doctor in the picture can be replaced with Pres. Noynoy Aquino himself.
The Aquino government is showing double standards in shaming medical doctors for allegedly reneging on their responsibility to pay taxes. It has no such campaign when it comes to big tax evaders from the ranks of big capitalists and big politicians like business tycoon Lucio Tan.
The lack of government revenue is the fault not of doctors but of the government itself. It has refused to implement genuine land reform and national industrialization, economic policies that will strengthen the government’s revenue base. Heeding the dictates of big foreign capitalists and financial institutions, it has privatized government assets, granted huge tax holidays to big foreign and local capitalists, and allowed big capitalists to evade taxes and engage in large-scale smuggling.
The Aquino government’s efforts to increase tax revenues from doctors, teachers and the majority of Filipinos is part of its austerity measures, which include the privatization of public hospitals and other government assets for short-term income and increases in members’ premium contributions to the Social Security System and Philippine Health Insurance Corp. It has also allowed petroleum prices and power rates to increase so that it can continue to collect huge tax revenues from the Value-Added Tax.
More than six months after the August 26 Million People March in Luneta, it is clear that the Aquino government continues to maintain and defend the pork barrel system. Aquino’s anomalous use of Disbursement Acceleration Program funds is coming to light and threatens to rock his regime.
Reference: Elmer “Bong” Labog, KMU chairperson, 0908-1636597
IMPORTANT NOTICE: INBOX is an archive of press releases, statements, announcements, letters to the editors, and manifestos sent to Davao Today for publication. Please email your materials to davaotoday@gmail.com. Davao Today is not responsible for the content of these materials. The opinion expressed in these items does not reflect those of Davao Today and its staff. Please refer to our terms of use/disclaimer.
Related
