The Bureau of Internal Revenue Region 12 in Bacolod City is stepping up its local tax drive with the Expanded Value Added Tax Roadshow and Regional Launching of 2006 Tax Campaign on January 13 at the Bacolod Convention Plaza Hotel.

Finance Secretary Margarito Teves and Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Jose Mario Buñag will spearhead the launching activities.

BIR Region 12, headed by OIC-Regional Director Esmeralda Tabule, said they will hold a comprehensive information campaign on Republic Act 9337 or the EVAT Law, a tax measure intended to help the government achieve a zero budget deficit by 2010.

Tabule had earlier said in a tax forum that the public should see the EVAT as a way of helping the government cope with its financial woes, adding an increased tax collection is needed to sustain the delivery of social services.

The effect of the EVAT on poor consumers is only be minimal, she said, which is an addition of about one percent in the prices of the goods they consume because the goods they purchase are mostly VAT-free.

The BIR expects to collect P80 billion in additional revenues with the implementation of the EVAT.

The VAT Reform Law provides that goods and services now subject to 10 percent VAT are coal, natural gas and other indigenous fuels, petroleum products and their raw materials, power, electric cooperatives, domestic transport of passengers by air and sea, passenger/cargo vessels more than 5,000 tons, medical services, legal services, cotton/cotton seeds and non-agricultural food products and works of art, literary works and musical composition.*NLG

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