John, I fully agree with this and in my present circumstances this would work well for me. Whilst living in PH I had sold my car back in UK and last year I bought one again there, but I had to consider a model that was going to be cheap to Tax, cheap to insure as I had no; No claims Bonus and had to start as a new driver in this respect. I opted for a small Yaris this is only £35 a year for RT, considering that I drive less than 2K miles in a year I do wonder if I can justify having a car at all? driving such low miles the cost to me per mile driven must be very high? added to that I hate driving such little cars, to further Feck me up they have a 6 speed manual in this little dinky toy, I have not a clue what gear I am in at any given time? A Law should be passed to keep Auld Bar Stewards like myself off the roads, we are just a nuisance to all other road users anyway.
Give the LTO their increase in fees with a couple requirements. Use the money for severance pay and fire the people responsible for purchasing license plates and the people that buy plastic for licenses. Purchase a portable crusher to dispose of motorcycles and cars with long overdue registration, inoperative safety equipment and motorcycles driven by underage drivers. In Bacong there seem to be a lot of 10-12 year old's driving around town. Make the LTO offices work through the weekend so the common working person can renew their license. It's sad to hear of people lining up in the middle of the night to get a license. At one time (and maybe still) the LTO in Dumaguete would only process 100 licenses a day.
In my opinion the headline is, as usual, to move money from peoples pockets to government pockets. That's the name of the game regardless whether they call it road tax or any other kind of payment you can hardly escape. Otherwise it shouldn't be unsaid that there is a lot of road works going on. There are certainly more and better roads in Dumaguete area compared to the situation a few years ago. Government need to find a way to collect money. Hence the tax system is insufficient to raise funds they create other ways. It's simple. The people don't declare and pay taxes as they should do, so they get pressed to pay road taxes and other contributions that are higher than it should be. This creates certainly injustice and is raising many questions. Anyhow I am afraid it will not change. Not as long as there is no proper and effective administration in place that take care that laws, rules and regulations are followed by everybody living in this country. By the way, building new roads is fine. And absolutely necessary. Once finished they should continue to build up proper medical aid system, a proper education system, a better and more reliable electricity, water supply and sewege system, better, faster and morr reliable internet connectivity, universities, schools, hospitals........... There are so many things to do. Provided the government really wants to change things to a better, not sure about it, they need funds. They could increase income and corporate taxes but it's pretty useless cause nobody is paying anyway regardless it would be 10% or 20%. This time they called it road tax.
I suppose that one way to look at it as an overall process - if something is mostly enjoyed by the wealthiest (a luxury) then better they pay more tax on that rather than the poor pay higher taxes on essential goods. This would be especially so if the services provided to road users has to be subsidised by other forms of taxation - so Ramos Poor is paying more taxes on his essential goods so that Ferdinand Rich can have better roads ("better" is relative here). I am not sure how VAT applies here as I just buy things without analysing the taxation of them but it is always the fairest way to zero rate essentials and put the highest rates on luxury goods. VAT is not evadable by the consumer (but can be (illegally) by businesses). I guess they could rake in a massive amount of tax if they increased taxes on alcohol (and smoking products) to anything near the level in countries such as the UK but would have an even greater mental illness problem than they already have (some will now argue the balance in this proposition). The savings in healthcare is less of an issue as often it has to be privately funded. The one tax here I have issue with is Gift Tax as it seems unreasonable and is paid by the donor - even if the donor resides abroad. So how do they collect it? My favourite taxes would be on: Karaoke after 10 pm; Fighting Cocks; Unlit vehicles .... and the one to raise the highest amount? A tax on stupidity.
Unfortunately they would not be able to collect the stupid Tax, who would be clever enough to determine who is stupid there? As I have said before they are all too stupid to know they are stupid.
