OFW Family Club party-list Rep. Roy Se帽eres: Agree
MANILA, Philippines鈥揗embers of the House ways and means committee have endorsed a proposal to assign a nongovernment organization to monitor tax compliance of cigarette companies.
Northern Samar Rep. Emil Ong and OFW Family Club party-list Rep. Roy Se帽eres said they would file a resolution deputizing the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Alliance of the Philippines to conduct a third-party audit of tax payments of cigarette companies amid fears that sin tax reforms in 2012 have been undermined by chronic tax-evasion schemes in the industry, specifically the use of duplicate tax stamps.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 a great idea. I agree with the proposal of the antismoking group, aside from them, representatives of other civic and church organizations should also be included,鈥� said Se帽eres.
The health advocate group expressed concerns over a recent study commissioned by Philip Morris International which showed that the Philippines lost an estimated P15.6 billion in revenue with the sale of tax-dodging cigarette products increasing by nearly three-fold to P17.1 billion last year from P6.1 billion in 2012.
鈥淭he government should ensure that cigarette companies have no hand in the third-party audit group. If we would be the monitoring group, I think that would be better,鈥� said FCTC president Maricar Limpin in an interview with reporters.
Based on its proposal, FCTC would send representatives to cigarette factories to act as independent watchdogs.