{"id":48790,"date":"2025-02-07T16:10:37","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T08:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/?p=48790"},"modified":"2025-02-07T16:10:59","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T08:10:59","slug":"house-oks-2-tobacco-bills-to-address-tax-losses-smuggling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/a\/48790","title":{"rendered":"House OKs 2 tobacco bills to address tax losses, smuggling"},"content":{"rendered":"

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 A bill seeking to rationalize excise tax rates on tobacco and vape products to curb revenue losses from illicit trade hurdled final reading at the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

During the plenary session Monday night, lawmakers voted 190-4 to pass on third reading House Bill 11360, which seeks to amend the National Internal Revenue Code to impose structured tax hikes on tobacco products.<\/p>\n

Under the bill, excise tax rates will increase by 2 percent every even-numbered year starting Jan. 1, 2026, and by 4 percent every odd-numbered year from Jan. 1, 2027, until Dec. 31, 2035.<\/p>\n

Heated tobacco products will be taxed at PHP41 per pack, while cigarettes and vape products will carry a PHP66.15 levy per pack.<\/p>\n

The Department of Finance (DOF) and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) will set removal thresholds to prevent frontloading.<\/p>\n

The bill also grants the President authority to raise tax rates by up to 5 percent if the national government deficit exceeds the target by 2 percent.<\/p>\n

A review of tax rates and their impact on government revenue, health costs, and smoking prevalence will be conducted after ten years of implementation.<\/p>\n

Nueva Ecija Rep. Mikaela Suansing, the bill\u2019s sponsor, stressed that the proposal could result in an \u201caggregate revenue recovery of PHP66 billion across five years.\u201d<\/p>\n

She highlighted that while the 2013 Sin Tax Law was initially effective in reducing smoking rates and boosting tax revenue, collections have been declining since 2021.<\/p>\n

Suansing said revenue from excise taxes on tobacco products fell from PHP176 billion in 2021 to PHP160 billion in 202d and further dropped to PHP135 billion in 2023.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the adult smoking rate increased from 18.5 percent in 2021 to 23.2 percent in 2023, largely due to rising illicit trade.<\/p>\n

Track-and-trace system for tobacco products<\/strong><\/p>\n

With 177 voted in favor, four against, and no abstentions, House Bill 11286, which mandates a track-and-trace system for tobacco products to strengthen excise tax enforcement, was approved on its final reading.<\/p>\n

The measure requires secure digital markers with unique identifiers on all tobacco products.<\/p>\n

It also mandates the registration of tobacco manufacturing equipment within 30 days of acquisition or disposal.<\/p>\n

The bill defines the crime of illicit trade of cigarettes, cigars, heated tobacco, vape, and novel tobacco products and imposes stricter penalties on violators.<\/p>\n

The BIR, in coordination with the National Telecommunications Commission, will be empowered to remove illicit product listings from digital platforms.<\/p>\n

Online platforms shall be responsible for ensuring the absence of illegal tobacco products on their sites.<\/p>\n

The bill also establishes the Inter-Agency Tobacco Illicit Trade Council, chaired by the DOF, to implement measures aimed at curbing illicit trade in the sector.\u00a0(PNA)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

source\uff1ahttps:\/\/www.pna.gov.ph\/articles\/1243268<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 A bill seeking to rationalize excise tax rates on tobacco and vape products to curb revenue losses from illicit trade hurdled final reading at the House of Representatives. During th …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48791,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}