Negros Occidental Vice Gov. Isidro Zayco yesterday said government should not impose taxes on text messages because they provide affordable communication for the people.

Inexpensive communication is important, especially when there are emergencies in remote areas, he said.

On Wednesday, Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila proposed that additional taxes be imposed on SMS to raise government revenues that could be used as subsidies for other industries hurt by the increasing prices of oil.

It is okay to impose taxes on liquor and cigarettes, but not on text messaging which is a necessity, Zayco said.

Senate President Manny Villar, in a press statement yesterday, also said tax on text messages will be an additional burden on the shoulders of poor Filipinos as he shot down the proposal to impose tax on the short messaging service (SMS) of cellphone subscribers.

"This proposal defeats the purpose of protecting the public from the ill effects of the spiraling cost of oil products as it entails additional burden to the people. Instead of passing additional burden to consumers, government must double on its efforts to improve tax collection," Villar said in his press statement.

Government officials should come up with 'solid proposals' on raising revenues and refrain from 'floating trial balloons' such as the one on the text tax, which has drawn fire from the public despite the fact that it has not been officially proposed by Malacañang to Congress, Villar said.

Text messages are now already covered by the 12 percent VAT and the service providers, all telecoms giants, are slapped a 35 percent corporate tax on profits, he said.

Government should be more sensitive to the needs of the majority and the reality that people are suffering from tax fatigue, he added.

The Philippines is known as the texting capital of the world. The country has an estimated 50 million cellphone users generating a traffic of over 300 million text messages a day, Villar said.*CPG

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