Reference to ANC Yahoo News
No! It's not the 'legally' delinquent Manny Pacquiao that has been ruining the credibility of the reforming BIR under the leadership of the very professional reformer Kim Henares. Historically, it has always been the government and its functionaries that make the Bureau and the system of taxation that it enforces look bad.
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| Source: ANC Yahoo! News |
The popular public support on Pacquiao's grievances is just a symptom of the fundamental causes of people's historical distrust in the BIR. A critical cause of civil disobedience has always been the felt and perceived ineffectiveness, unprofessionalism, inefficiency, and lack of creativity of government agencies from the DPWH to DOTC to DOH to LGUs and the corrupt pork barrel system of the elected officials.
If ever Henares fails at this point, I won't blame her. I'd rather call on the people to press on her colleagues in the bureaucracy, counterparts in all government agencies, and the elected officials who have failed her creative and committed reform agenda at the BIR.
Since I'm not a tax lawyer/accountant and not a paid institutionalist analyst, I'd like to emphasise the importance of this current public issue to raise awareness and consciousness about the "principles" of taxation. At this stage of our development process, it's important that the BIR led by Henares also educate the public regarding the "principles" of taxation, and not just the "rules" of taxation.
A core principle in taxation is that it must be viewed in "relational" terms — that is, it is a social contract and relationship between the state and citizen taxpayer. As such, both the state and the citizen have rights and obligations. But there's a problem if the state only asserts its rights to tax citizens without fulfilling its obligations to provide for social welfare, infrastructure, and other programmes for development and redistributive justice.
Why am I not much into "rules" of taxation in the Philippine context? Based on my academic understanding, the enduring Philippine tax code, including the E-VAT law, has historically been capitalist and essentially elitist that is technocratically designed to protect bourgeois class interests and the preservation of the system of private property relations by putting a heavy tax burden on the poor and the hardworking middle class without sense of equity and social justice.
In this so-called 'reform' process — or, what others call process of 'nation-building' — the existing unjust 'rules' of taxation need to be seriously questioned, examined, and reformed. This is to be done by coming up with new 'principles' as the bases for 'rules' of state taxation that embody the collective interest and welfare of the Filipino people's existence in pursuit of the good life.
If ever Henares fails at this point, I won't blame her. I'd rather call on the people to press on her colleagues in the bureaucracy, counterparts in all government agencies, and the elected officials who have failed her creative and committed reform agenda at the BIR.
Since I'm not a tax lawyer/accountant and not a paid institutionalist analyst, I'd like to emphasise the importance of this current public issue to raise awareness and consciousness about the "principles" of taxation. At this stage of our development process, it's important that the BIR led by Henares also educate the public regarding the "principles" of taxation, and not just the "rules" of taxation.
A core principle in taxation is that it must be viewed in "relational" terms — that is, it is a social contract and relationship between the state and citizen taxpayer. As such, both the state and the citizen have rights and obligations. But there's a problem if the state only asserts its rights to tax citizens without fulfilling its obligations to provide for social welfare, infrastructure, and other programmes for development and redistributive justice.
Why am I not much into "rules" of taxation in the Philippine context? Based on my academic understanding, the enduring Philippine tax code, including the E-VAT law, has historically been capitalist and essentially elitist that is technocratically designed to protect bourgeois class interests and the preservation of the system of private property relations by putting a heavy tax burden on the poor and the hardworking middle class without sense of equity and social justice.
In this so-called 'reform' process — or, what others call process of 'nation-building' — the existing unjust 'rules' of taxation need to be seriously questioned, examined, and reformed. This is to be done by coming up with new 'principles' as the bases for 'rules' of state taxation that embody the collective interest and welfare of the Filipino people's existence in pursuit of the good life.
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