Heartless! Zubiri blasts BIR over ‘insensitive,’ ‘unnecessary’ plan to tax online sellers

By JOHN CARLO M. CAHINHINAN

Senate Majority Floor Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri has scored the supposed plan of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to tax online micro and small merchants.

Zubiri said the proposal to impose additional taxes on online sellers “is not only insensitive but totally unnecessary.”

According to Zubiri, many of these online sellers are trying to survive during this pandemic period and to harass them on their last means of income is “heartless to say the least.”

“Hindi naman tama yan, kawawa naman yung maliliit na negosyante na hirap na hirap na,” he said.

Zubiri stressed that those with devious minds planning these tax schemes “will have little or no support at the Senate for these measures.”

The Senator from Bukidnon said although he understands the government’s needs to boost its revenues to sustain its amelioration program following the recent lockdown due to the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), taxing small businesses is not the solution.

“We understand that our government needs revenue but we must focus on what’s important, on which industry needs government support to survive as well as which industry could share the burden. Definitely taxing small online businesses who are trying to survive is not the answer,” he said.

Zubiri vowed that instead of going after these striving online sellers, he and other senators are planning to impose heavy taxes to the income of Chinese off-shore gaming hubs under the Philippine Off-shore Gaming Operators (POGO) which he described as growing within the country “like a virus”

“Let’s slap a heavy excise or franchise tax on top of the income tax charged to them,” said Zubiri.

“Why make our small enterprising and entrepreneurial Pinoys suffer from the threat of taxation and allow foreign POGO operators to operate while evading or under paying their taxes,” he added.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)