Zarate warns of four more TRAIN laws to come

Bayan Muna party-list Representative Carlos Zarate on Monday warned that more tax reform measures will come even as the inflation rate further accelerated to 6.4 percent last month.

Aside from the first and second packages of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) measures, there are four more bills that have been submitted by the Department of Finance to Congress, Zarate said.

These are "TRAIN 1B, TRAIN 2+, TRAIN 3 and TRAIN 4," Zarate said.

"TRAIN 1B deals with tax amnesty for smugglers as well as the motor vehicle user charge. TRAIN 2+ is on alcohol and tobacco excise taxes along with mining taxes. TRAIN 3 is on property taxation, and TRAIN 4 is on capital income taxation," the lawmaker said.

"These bills would definitely further hike prices of goods and services even if the Duterte administration would say that the targets of these tax measures are the rich," he added.

Opposition lawmakers have consistently pinned the blame on the first package of the tax reform program for the rising prices of goods and the accelerating inflation.

Enacted in December last year, TRAIN 1 reduced personal income tax rates and at the same time increased excise taxes for petroleum products, automobiles, and imposed levy on sugar sweetened beverages.

"After the implementation of TRAIN 1 this January, the prices of basic goods and services have skyrocketed prompting the Duterte administration now to propose ways to lower prices," Zarate said.

"As it is though, with the TRAIN Law still in effect, the measures they suggested like the passage of the Rice Tariffication bill, direct selling of chicken to consumers and increased sugar and fish importation would just worsen the problem," he added.

Zarate said these measures would just make the country more reliant on imported goods. Cartels and smugglers would likewise tighten the Philippine economy, he added.

"I am calling on my colleagues and the Filipino people to guard against these new tax proposals and do all we can to stop them," Zarate said. —KG, GMA News