Kabataan Party-list Representative Raymond “Mong” Palatino today said that instead of introducing a tex tax, the government should closely monitor the excesses committed by telecommunications companies such as text scams, charges, and vanishing cellphone loads.”Telcos reap so much profit through these mechanisms.

“The government should scrap its deregulation policy instead of imposing tax measures that will only benefit corrupt officials,” he said.

Palatino also expressed doubts on the intentions behind the proposed P0.05 excise tax on text messaging and said that the text tax will only add burden to the country’s 56 million cellphone users.

“At a time of economic turmoil, why are our legislators introducing another tax that only puts consumers at the losing end? Despite House Bill 6625’s ‘no pass-on’ provision, we cannot be entirely sure that the consumers will not shoulder this additional weight. Given the government’s track record on tax collection, how can the consumers be assured that the they would not be burdened with this text tax?” Palatino said.

Palatino said, “Now is not the time to introduce new taxes. Not only in light of the country’s dim economic situation, but because our government is tainted with one unfortunate reputation: that our taxes only go to the pockets of government officials.”

Palatino said that corrupt officials will only benefit from from additional taxes shouldered by consumers. “Pagkatapos nilang kumain sa mamahaling restaurant, the consumers are the ones footing the bill,” he said. ###