We are hoping that President Rodrigo Duterte will include in his first SONA how the government will improve utilizing the gains of the
sin tax to achieve better health outcomes for every Filipino.
Rojas warned that failure to further increase the
sin tax would result to 200,000 new smokers and 2,000 avoidable deaths from smoking-related diseases.
Previous information had indicated that beer would be excluded from any
sin tax package, but there have been many contradictory reports in recent months.
Pinkney was instrumental in the passage of Cleveland's Issue 5, Extension of the
Sin Tax.
We would also support review of the
sin tax law for both alcohol and tobacco," Dominguez told reporters at the DOF headquarters.
Senator Risa Hontiveros backed Ejercito's proposal while Senator Grace Poe cited the position papers of Action for Economic Reforms and several other organization that 'failure to increase
sin tax this year will result in additional 200,000 more new smokers.
Those who oppose this measure do not deserve a seat in the Senate in the coming years,' said Benjie Aquino, chair of the UP Diliman student council and member of the Youth for
Sin Tax Movement, in a press briefing.
This was raised during a workshop on the
Sin Tax where Jo-Ann Diosana, senior economist of Action for Economic Reforms (AER), noted the possibility of a reversal when the law will be reviewed in 2016.
Before the passage of the
Sin Tax Law, there was an estimated 17 million active smokers in the country.
630 billion in taxes have been generated by the government from the
sin tax law from January 2013 up to the first half of 2015.
The World Bank has cited the Philippines'
sin tax reform as among the 'most successful' tobacco taxation that not only shored up revenues but also lessened smoking prevalence in the country.
The DOF and DOH were cited for their instrumental role in the passage of the 2012
Sin Tax Law, which according to Bloomberg Philanthropies "greatly simplified the tax system, introduced higher excise rates, and indexed the tax rate to an inflation proxy of 4 percent annually after 2017.