Abolition of travel tax eyed in Senate
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2019 09:37:50 +0000
SEN. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel 3rd filed Senate Bill (SB) 91 abolishing travel tax.
The senator said, the national government “should not shift the burden of improving our substantially inadequate tourism facilities and infrastructure to the regular traveling Filipinos, who are already paying a huge chunk of their salary to the national government via income tax.”
He said SB 91 intends to “not only abolish travel taxes for individuals traveling to other Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member states but to totally remove the imposition of travel tax for individuals who depart to any other country around the globe.”
“A Filipino right to travel abroad is burdened with the imposition of a travel tax,” Pimentel said.
Filipinos traveling overseas need to pay the following fees: full travel tax P2,700 (for first class passage) and P1,620 (for economy class passage).
The standard reduced travel tax is P1,350 (first class passage) or P810 (economy class).
The privileged reduced travel tax for a dependent of an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) is P400 (first class passage) or P300 (economy class).
Pimentel said that the travel tax was originally imposed to curtail unnecessary foreign travels and to conserve foreign exchange.
“Subsequently, the travel tax was used to generate much needed funds for tourism-related programs and projects especially for the development and enhancement of the country’s competitiveness as a major tourist destination,” he said. BERNADETTE E. TAMAYO
The post Abolition of travel tax eyed in Senate appeared first on The Manila Times Online.