Spike in prices only “transitory,” he says
(Eagle News) – Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said Wednesday, May 9, that suspending the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law “will do more harm than good.”
His statement came a day after Senators JV Ejercito and Bam Aquino called on government economic managers to suspend the law amid reports of a spike in inflation rate—4.5 percent in April— reportedly the fastest in more than five years.
According to Diokno, suspending the law “will create a lot of chaos as the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs are already geared towards implementing these taxes.”
“And so it will upset the revenue projection, for example,” Diokno said.
According to the budget secretary, in the first place, the increase in prices due to TRAIN is only “transitory.”
He said this should “normalize during the second half of the year or in 2019.”
He added that the government is providing unconditional cash transfer assistance of P200 per month or P2,400 for the whole of 2018 to 10 million poor Filipino households as “mitigating measures.”
He said the financial assistance will be increased from P200 to P300 in 2019 and 2020.
“Suspending the law is out of the question,” Diokno said.