Locsin on Salceda's proposal to tax Netflix, other digital services: 'Kill Bill'

Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Wednesday fired off a barrage of tweets denouncing the proposal of Albay Representative Joey Salceda for the government to impose taxes on digital services such as Spotify and Netflix.

Locsin called the proposed measure “stupid” and “useless,” arguing the people needed “to vent their frustration and find distraction from stupidity” through “personal internet use.”

“And now we're gonna done [sic] that for taxes? Why not tax oxygen. My friend Joey Salceda, whom I so admired, has become a curse on our country,” he said.

“KILL BILL,” Locsin tweeted in response to the headline of a story about Salceda’s proposal.

According to Locsin, the government should instead tax digital services availed by business processing outsourcing (BPO) companies and the Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs).

Locsin also said Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has assured the public that the government still has enough money even as Salceda’s proposal aims to generate as much as P29.1 billion yearly in incremental revenues.

Salceda said on Tuesday the measures under the bill are not “new taxes” and that his proposal will not affect social media users who do not advertise on the target platforms.

“If anything, these social media platforms need you, the user, to keep using, so that they could earn from digital advertising, the same way TV networks need viewers so they could get advertising contracts," the economist-lawmaker said.

"So, the usual social media channels will definitely remain free. The whole idea that somehow, this bill will make social media networks charge users who don’t advertise, that’s a bad reading of the proposal.” —KBK, GMA News