BAGUIO CITY – The city government has joined the growing call for the lifting of the Expanded Value Added Tax (EVAT) imposition on petroleum products to ease the effects of spiraling cost of fuel in the country.
The city council approved Resolution No. 51 authored by Councilor Edison Bilog requesting the House of Representatives to amend the law that imposed the EVAT on petroleum products.
“It is high time to remove EVAT since from 2005, our economy has been doing good and there is no more basis for such a high EVAT on crude oil and gasoline,” the resolution noted.
Bilog said the EVAT was conceived to increase revenues for the government by imposing higher tax rate on goods and services and the earnings can be used “to improve infrastructure, environment, education and health systems and provide employment opportunities to citizens.”
However, the EVAT caused additional burden to the poor who had to contend with the increased cost of commodities and services.
“The EVAT law entailed sacrifices in the short run but it guaranteed lasting rewards in the form of better social services, less debt and better financing for rural programs; however, it still boils down to unjust and oppressive suffering and burden to the less privileged citizens of the Philippines,” he said.
The call for the EVAT lifting has become emergent in the wake of the successive increases in the costs of fuel caused by the uncontrolled hike in the world market amid tensions in oil supplier countries.
Petroleum products covered by EVAT are useful material derived from crude oil as it is processed in oil refineries which also comprise of refinery gas, ethane, LPG, aviation gasoline, jet fuels, kerosene, gas/diesel oil, fuel oil, naphtha, while spirit, lubricants, bitumen, paraffin waxes and petroleum coke.
EVAT also extends to services offered by rental car companies, tourist buses, taxi, resorts, hotels, clubs and restaurants, imported meat and pest control products; trucking, shipping and airfreight; telegram, television, radio and telephone facilities; use of satellite transmission, films and cable televisions; feeds for aquarium fish; fighting cocks and race horses; property rights; non-life insurance and professional fees. – A Refuerzo