Tax the super-rich? Not this government

Should a serious polling entity embark on a survey of the nation's sentiment on the Tax the Rich bill filed by the Makabayan bloc at the House of Representative, there would be no surprises on the polling results. A vast majority of Filipinos will support that historic fiscal proposal. The anti-rich, those believing that the rich has gotten away with tax underpayment, and those who simply hold that the government needs more anti-poverty revenues and the super-rich are the logical sources of that revenue are the three cohorts that would unanimously support more taxation for the super-rich.

And House Bill (HB) 10253 made it pretty clear that only those worth P1 billion and above should be taxed, a threshold of wealth high enough and covering only those in the top 1 percent. That makes the taxation proposal easy to both accept and support. Majority of poor Filipinos, such as myself, deeply feel that those with great wealth should have more responsibilities, including paying more in taxes.