Tax reform package to free 6M Filipinos from poverty, DOF claims

The government's planned comprehensive tax reform package has the potential to "free" six million Filipinos from poverty over the next six years, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III claimed on Tuesday.

"Our mandate is to take on the more challenging path. Building on solid fundamentals, we must immediately bring relief to all Filipinos burdened with oppressive tax rates," he said in an emailed statement.

"That translates into liberating six million Filipinos from the grip of poverty. We intend to transform our country from a lower middle-income to an upper middle-income economy," he added.

The comprehensive tax reform package is part of the Duterte administration's 10-point economic agenda the government's economic team revealed in June.

The first package of proposals – reducing the personal income tax and expanding the value-added tax base – was submitted to Congress in September.

The Department of Finance (DOF) earlier said four out of five taxpayers are going to benefit from such proposals, as 4.7 million taxpayers will no longer have to pay income tax starting 2018.

Once in place, the tax reform package will raise the country's per-capita gross national income to as much as $4,000 by 2022, according to the Cabinet official.

"That is the level of Thailand and China today after decades of sustained economic expansion in those economies," Dominguez said, noting that if the momentum is sustained, by "the end of this administration, the Philippines should be well on its way to eradicating poverty completely by 2040 or a generation hence."

The goal is also in line with the "AmBisyon Natin 2040," the 25-year vision of the National Economic and Development Authority to eliminate hunger and poverty in the country. — Jon Viktor Cabuenas/VDS, GMA News