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TXTers, Revolt!
by TXTPower
Friday, Jul. 30, 2004 at 1:39 AM
With the government already slapping 10-percent VAT and 10-percent Overseas Communications Taxes on the use of cellphones, we ask: WHY EXTORT FROM US WITH NEW TAXES?
We, citizens of the world’s texting capital, say NO to any new tax on cellphone services.
Be it a tax on the superprofits of telecommunication companies or a franchise tax increase or a new text tax, the Macapagal-Arroyo government’s revenue plans will surely be passed on to consumers like us.
With the government already slapping 10-percent VAT and 10-percent Overseas Communications Taxes on the use of cellphones, we ask: WHY EXTORT FROM US WITH NEW TAXES?
Today, 25 percent of the population now relies on text messaging for fast and efficient communication among family, friends, co-workers and our millions of OFWs, making texting a clear necessity among Filipinos, 28 million of whom use cellphones.
Additional taxes will result in an increase in cost of texting and would eventually limit democratic access to this technology.
More importantly, more and new taxes are truly unacceptable at a time when we already bear intolerable economic problems. With the increases in prices of basic goods, fare hikes and impending increases in electricity and water rates, Filipino consumers could not bear to be oppressed further by new taxes.
We challenge the Macapagal-Arroyo government to be more creative and pro-people ways in confronting the budget deficit. It should instead curb corruption, stop unproductive spending, improve revenue collection, prosecute tax evaders, seize properties of tax evaders, impose taxes on luxury purchases of the elite and cut down billions of pesos worth of tax perks offered to big companies.
We also demand that the International Monetary Fund keep off our cellphones and how we would fix our national problems. For us, the IMF and its long-running intervention in our internal affairs have long been part of the problem, not the solution.
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