People who have lived in the
eighties and early nineties might still remember a time when commercials for
cigarettes had a prominent place on TV. Several years and a rise of greater
health awareness later, cigarettes have been mostly consigned to just print ads,
forced to carry graphic health warnings, and are made more expensive by Philippine
“Sin Tax” legislation. That has not stopped many Filipinos from risking their
health by buying cigarette sticks or their less-than-ideal alternative,
vaporizers/vapes. In a bid to make them get the message, Congress is pushing a
bill calling for a new Sin Tax hike.
CNN Philippines reports that the Philippine House of
Representatives has approved a final reading for a bill that will make
substantial additions to existing Sin Tax law. To wit, the lower house of
Congress will beef up the excise tax on alcoholic drinks and new taxes will be
levied on both cigarettes and vaping products. Congressmen would vote an
overwhelming 184 in favor against two opposed and one abstaining last week to
approve the measure on only its second reading. This is the first House bill approved
by the 18th Congress that is not a carry-over from the previous one.
In specific, the net retail price
of alcoholic beverages will receive a 22% excise tax. It is followed by P35 per
proof liter in specific tax that will increase every year by 7%, starting from
2023. These taxes will become effective starting January 1, 2020 so by 2021 the
tax per proof liter of alcohol will go past P40. On the same year as this
alcohol tax takes effect, cigarettes will have P45 additional in tax for every
20-stick pack, and it will be upped by P5 every year afterward until the year 2024,
when it will shift to a 5% annual tax increase instead.
Even vaporizers are not spared,
as by next year each milliliter (ml) of vaping solution will have a punishing
P30 tax. It can potentially reach P45 within three years before it also
transitions to a 5% annual hike similar to cigarettes starting in 2024. And this
new legislation is separate from the 2020-effective P45-per-pack tax law signed
last month by President Rodrigo Duterte, who has been a driving force in
increasing tax levies for tobacco and alcohol to prohibitively expensive
levels, which he again referred to in the fourth State of the Nation Address of
his administration this past June.
Drinkers, smokers and vapers need
not fret much seeing as these taxes fleeced from them for their fixes will go
to the Universal Health Care Law that could cover their sicknesses in the
future. The Philippine Senate is currently working on its own version of this
new Sin Tax bill.
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