Speaker Nograles Wants to Apply 20 Centavo Tax on Text

Posted on September 30th, 2008. Written by Rico.

To cover and apparent “backlog” in the budgets of the Department of Health and Department Education, Speaker Prospero Nograles yesterday proposed his own brand of taxation on text messaging.

The proposal involved the imposition of a 20 centavo tax per SMS message, the proceeds of which would go to a “trust fund to be used solely for health care and education.”

The funny thing is, Senator Richard Gordon previously proposed a similar taxation scheme—applied to the earnings of telecommunications companies. For some reason, Speaker Nograles wants the tax to be represented as a higher price per text, effectively passing the buck to the millions of texters in the Philippines.

“I do not think that people will object if they know that this fund will all go to health care and good education for our children. Right now, the promo rate is 50 centavos per text. We can tax 20 centavos, to up the cost to 70 centavos, but the 20 centavos must all go exclusively to health and education and nowhere else,” he said.

This may be a hard pill to swallow. Especially if there’s a widespread perception that the tax money won’t really end up where it’s supposed to be. (ph.news.yahoo.com)