MALAKING hamon kay Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner Caesar ‘Billy’ Dulay ang desisyon ni Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III na i-extend sa Mayo 15 mula sa Abril 15 ang paghahain ng income tax returns dahil sa matinding pinsala na idinulot ng COVID-19, hindi lamang sa Filipinas kundi sa buong mundo.
Ayon kina Marikina City at Valenzuela City Revenue District Officers Saripoden Bantog at Rufo Renario, ang tax deadline extension ay nakapaloob sa Memorandum Circular na may petsang March 18 na pirmado ni Commissioner Dulay sa utos ni Secretary Dominguez.
Alinsunod ito sa napagkasunduan sa pagpupulong nina Pangulong Rodrigo Duterte, Secretary Dominguez, Senador Bong Go at Senate President Vicente ‘Tito’ Sotto III kaugnay ng krisis sa COVID-19 na kinakaharap ng bansa.
Ang BIR ay may tax collection goal na P2.617 trillion ngayong 2020, mas mataas ng 13.13 percent kumpara noong nakaraang taon. Apektado rin ang Bureau of Customs (BOC) sa iniatang sa kanilang P746 bilyon na tax collection, na mas mataas ng 12.69 percent kumpara noong 2019.
Naniniwala naman si Commissioner Dulay na malalagpasan ng ahensiya ang lahat ng ito basta sama-sama at tulong-tulong lamang sila sa pagkolekta ng buwis.
Kaugnay sa COVID-19 crisis, nagpahayag naman si economist Tony Lopez sa posibleng idulot ng krisis sa COVID-19 sa ekonomiya ng bansa,
“With a Luzon-wide lockdown, some 48 million Filipinos on the Philippines’ main island have to return to basics. They retreated to their ultimate defense castles – their homes. It happens that the household or family is also the basic unit of society and the basic economic unit. A lockdown in Luzon, meaning a freeze in almost every economic activity in the archipelago’s richest and most productive island, is a lockdown or an insidious assault on the economy. You freeze the population, you freeze economic activity or consumption, you stop the economy’s gears. with a population of 109 million, there are more than 23 million households in the Philippines; 10 million of that are in Luzon, including 2.8 million in Metro Manila, the national capital. The contribution of Luzon to the national economy is tremendous—73 of every 100 pesos of goods and services produced nationwide. The economy has two kinds of consumers – households and the government.
The economy is run by consumption—74 percent by private consumption, and 13 percent by government. If people or households, counted as private consumption, do not spend, it’s like stopping 74 percent of the economy. Government’s share of consumption, 13 percent, cannot make up for the slack. One reason for the strength of private consumption is the huge money sent by some 12 million Filipino expats who work or stay abroad. In 2019, remittances were a record $33.47 billion or P1.698 trillion. Much of that money is stranded, meaning it is not funneled to something productive like capital goods or machinery, or factories, or infrastructure. Most goes to consumption – of consumer goods, appliances, cars, homes, and for simply shopping, eating, and entertainment.
If you lock people up in their homes, in effect you hinder them from consuming goods and services. The economy produces P18 trillion worth of goods and services a year. Of that, a whopping 73 percent is produced by Luzon alone, or P13.21 trillion. Divide that by 365, and you get Luzon consuming/producing P36.2 billion worth of goods and services—daily. Freeze that for one month or 30 days times P36.2 billion, and you get an economic impact of P1.08 trillion in one month.
Assuming you freeze only half of the P1 trillion for 30 days, you still get a gargantuan figure—P543 billion. Imagine the impact on wages, jobs, economic dislocation, and social inequity if that amount were withdrawn from the economy for one month. You would have mass unrest if the lockdown went beyond reasonable limits.“
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