Reaction: Sin Tax Law Essay

I am so glad of the very purpose of passing the sin tax law which is to protect the health and save the lives of the countrymen. This simply means that the government officials are concern about the good health of all Filipinos but this doesn’t mean that I am into this bill, for some reasons that the government or most of the senate themselves failed to look unto. Firstly, I would like to agree with Sen. Marcos who said that farmers stand to lose their livelihood because of the measure. This is very true, we all know of the fact that Philippines’ one trademark in the field of import and export of raw materials is the tobacco, there have been a lot of Filipino families who are dependent on their incomes from tobacco industries and wine manufactories. And here comes this bill passed without proposing alternatives that would help these people; it should be taken an account in the first place . It is even harder for the government to generate jobs for thousands of jobless Filipinos who have finished their degrees how much more these people. Is the government expecting them to easily shift to another source of income? What kind of income would that be? Smuggling? Second, given the proposed prices of alcohol and cigarettes, I see it as so illogical for the government to risk their time and effort on this issue , giving the people-friendly prices at the end of the day I suggest this is not supporting to their proposal, because for the people who have been addicted to cigarettes and alcohol, like the need of rice no matter how you increase the price since it is what they needed and wanted they’d rather take the risk to get a source of money just to buy those things. Sin tax is a form of an excise tax. It is a tax levied on some commodities but not all commodities unlike sales tax. This is how the government generates more revenues However, the opposition claims that this bill will backfire on its goals. Since the price of the price of the commodities will rise, the demand will decrease. Thus, there will be no revenues to generate which contrast one of the goals of the bill since industries such as tobacco will die. However, the p roducts under sin tax are vices. Some people are already addicted to them. Even if the price of these products will rise , people will still buy though some price conscious such as the poor sector and students will cut their consumption .Plus, even the demand for the sin products will decrease; the increased tax will make up for the loss demand. Thus, the industries will not die. The opposition also said that the rate of smuggling will worsen. Thats all i can say this law. REACTION: SIN TAX LAW Sumptuary taxes are ostensibly used for reducing transactions involving something that society considers undesirable, and is thus a kind of sumptuary law. Sin tax is used for taxes on activities that are considered socially undesirable. Common targets of sumptuary taxes are alcohol and tobacco, gambling, and vehicles emitting excessive pollutants. Sumptuary tax on sugar and soft drinks has also been suggested.[1] Some jurisdictions have also levied taxes on illegal drugs such as cocaine and marijuana.[citation needed] The revenue generated by sin taxes is sometimes used for special projects, but might also be used in the ordinary budget. American cities and countries have used them to pay for stadiums, while in Sweden the tax for gambling is used for helping people with gambling problems. Sin taxes have historically triggered rampant smuggling and black markets, especially when they create large price differences in neighboring jurisdictions.[citation needed] †¢ Critics of sin tax argue[who?] that it is a regressive tax in nature and discriminates against the lower classes, since taxation of a product such as alcohol or cigarettes does not account for ability to pay, therefore poor people pay a greater amount of their income as tax. Sin taxes are not normally value added in nature meaning that expensive, high-quality products more likely to be purchased by the wealthy will have the tax comprise a much smaller proportion of its final purchase price, thus ensuring that the lower classes pay a much greater proportion of their lower income in tax. Sin taxes fail to affect consumers’ behaviorS in the way that tax proponents suggest, for instance increasing smokers’ propensity to smoke high-tar, high-nicotine cigarettes when the per-pack price is raised and increasing the rate of people mixing their own drinks rather than buying pre-mix alcoholic spirits