text message w/ tax

[mr_bangis]

proper use of our taxes and elimination of graft and corruption is the answer, and not additional taxes.

[pajerokid]

Originally posted by boybi
pano?

They will pass a law to allow SMS taxation. It's that simple and its within the bounds of government power.

Rest assured, all mobile telcos will try to fight this. Ang dami namang arguments against this e. lalo na revenue increase lang ang gusto ng gobyerno.

[qman]

50-centavo per txt message tax proposed in House

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A BILL seeking to impose a 50-centavo tax on every text message sent has been filed at the House by Pangasinan Rep. Mark Cojuangco.

House Bill No, 3977 revives earlier proposals to tax the highly popular short messaging service.

The proposals were dropped after they met strong opposition from telecom companies and the public.

Both the Senate and the House had earlier suggested taxing SMS but these proposals were met by stiff opposition from telecom companies and the public.

Tax messages cost in the average P1 each to send.

The tax was seen as increasing text messaging costs.

About 80 percent of the income of telecom companies reportedly come from SMS.

In Cojuangco’s bill, the tax will carry a no-pass-on provision to bar cellular phone companies from imposing additional charges or fees on their estimated combined 24.6 million mobile phone subscribers.

Under the Cojuangco bill, telecom companies which found violating the no-pass-on provision would be required to pay the amount passed on to their subscribers plus a surcharge of 25 percent.

Cojuangco said the money that would be collected from the additional tax would constitute a Special Infrastructure Fund for use in upgrading, modernizing and improving the country’s infrastructure for "economic vibrancy and social modernization."

"Sadly, the government’s drive towards transforming the Philippines from a developing Asian frontier into a self-reliant, progressive and industrialized country leaves much to be desired," he said.

Cojuangco said "the depressing state of the country’s infrastructure is the culprit, turning off potential investors who, aside from looking for a globally competitive labor force, seek adequate infrastructure for profitable economic undertakings."

Another reason he cited for filing the bill is the fiscal crisis which the country continues to grapple with. "The SMS is the easiest source of revenue to alleviate our fiscal situation, whereby each text-sender shares in the burden of nation-building," Cojuangco said.

The bill will penalize by not less than P50,000 but not more than P100,000, or a jail term of not less than three years but not more than six years those who will fail to turn over the SMS tax collections to the Special Infrastructure Fund. – Wendell Vigilia

[qman]

haha lahat ata nilalagyan ng tax sa GH me bayad ang pagpasok mo ng CR malamang lagyan din ng VAT iyon bwheheehe

[mbt]

discounting arguments like "enforce existing tax laws first before enacting new ones" or "lessen corruption first before taxing", meaning to say, judging this measure on its own merit, i think its actually reasonable.

the government is in a huge debt (let's not discuss how or whos to blame hehe). say if each text message were taxed 1 centavo, malaki na rin yung total na macocollect, and this is a miniscule amount to pay naman for end users, so everyone will be happy (ideally).

lets say 20 million sim cards exist (im sure this is a conservative number), lets say each sim texts 10 messages a day (again, a conservative number). the govt will collect 2M a day, or 730M a year, and this tax will be hardly felt by phone users (again, ideally).

50 cents is waaaay too much. but at the same time, nobody can deny na ang dami dami namang junk texts na sinesend ang mga pinoy e, so i dont think the argument that "texting is a necesity blah blah, so it shouldnt be taxed" holds much merit. imo. hehe.

[CLAVEL3699]

wag na tayo txt. hehehehe