March 2, 2015
Daily Star by Carla Gomez | http://goo.gl/07aMh4
Sugar leaders are asking for a moratorium on the imposition of Revenue Regulation 11-2014 so a win-win solution can be reached, at a dialog to be held at the Bureau of Internal Revenue Region 12 office in Barangay Taculing, Bacolod City, at 1:30 p.m. today.
RR 11-2014 imposes a one percent creditable withholding tax on locally produced raw sugar upon withdrawal from the mills. Protesting small farmers, many of whom are agrarian reform beneficiaries, slammed the BIR last week, saying its RR 11-2014 requirements have hampered the buying and release of their sugar from the mills.
The small farmers, who staged a protest in front of the BIR office at Taculing, called for the scrapping of RR 11-2014.
BIR Commissioner Kim Henares, in an interview over Bacolod’s DYEZ Aksyon Radyo, Saturday, said the dialog today is being held to explain the role of those covered by RR 11-2014.
Farmers who earn an income have to pay taxes, too, she said.
Manuel Lamata, United Sugar Producers' Federation of the Philippines president, said they will ask for a 120-day moratorium on RR 11-2014.
“We will then ask the BIR to form a committee to sit down with a sugar industry committee to discuss a win-win solution that is palatable to both parties,” he said.
The BIR has to understand that the ones suffering are the agrarian reform beneficiaries who comprise 95 percent of the industry, Lamata said.
Enrique Rojas, president of the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters, said “Our main concern is the livelihood of the small planters who cannot meet the numerous documentary requirements of BIR. It is very difficult for them to secure their TIN (Taxpayer Identification Number), business permits, official receipts and other BIR requirements.”
Without those documents, the small planters cannot sell their sugar and molasses and their families might go hungry, he said.
“We are seeking a two to three months moratorium on the implementation of the order to give sufficient time for the small farmers to comply with the requirements,” Rojas added.
We propose to form a committee that will sit down with a group of BIR officers to iron out the problematic provisions of the order to ensure the uniform requirements and processes to be implemented in all sugar-producing provinces,” he said.
Rojas added that they will also ask BIR to honor the exemption of cooperatives from the one percent withholding tax, as clearly stipulated in the Cooperative Code.
Rafael Coscolluela, president of the Confederation of Sugar Producers Associations, said the BIR will try to make people at the dialog today understand why they should pay the one percent tax, largely because it is creditable anyway, and within BIR's powers.
“But arguments will be raised by cooperatives and small planters, who do not file Income Tax Returns in the first place, on the grounds that they are 'tax exempt'. Neither side will budge. But there are quarters that are already complying; it's not a problem for them,” Coscolluela said