PTI president Rodolfo Salanga claimed that “the cost of printing a tax stamp is only 11.37 centavos ” a piece such that the price hike would jack up APO’s net profit by 102 percent.PTI’s proposal to increase the tax stamp price by only 2 centavos to 17 centavos would be the same as the increase in 2018 from the original price of 13 centavos when the internal revenue stamps integrated system was started by the BIR in 2014.
PTI was worried that a significant increase in tax stamp prices would further burden the tobacco industry, which already shouldered higher excise taxes while fighting rampant illicit trade. “The industry has consistently increased excise tax payments to the government from P33 billion in 2012 to P148.5 billion in 2020, a 350-percent increase that enabled the government to fund its developmental projects as well as the Universal Health Care program,” Salanga said.
Also, “the industry has been battered with annual excise tax increases and production volume is down by half from 120 billion sticks in 2012 to 60 billion sticks last year, thus, hitting us with another blow to raise the cost of the tax stamps, would be too much,” Salanga added. “We have immensely contributed to the government and imposing a steep price on the cost of the tax stamp is too much to bear and would only bleed the industry further,” according to Salanga.