Albay Rep. Joey Salceda wanted to have an additional tax on digital services
Albay Rep. Joey Salceda was pushing for taxation on various digital services in order to offset an estimated PHP 120 billion in previous revenues.
This, as Salceda wanted to have an additional tax on digital services in order to relieve the pain caused by COVID-19 on businesses. The digital services include subscriptions to various video and music streaming applications, ads on social media sites, as well as making online sales platforms as withholding tax agents.
Salceda on Monday told the Inquirer that he intended to name three new tax measures.
“Netflix Tax”
Salceda said that the current standard digital services tax struck on subscriptions across the globe was 5%, adding that the Philippines would impose a 12% tax on subscriptions to video and music streaming sites.
At present, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda noted that subscription fees that were collected by video and music streaming sites — such as Netflix and Spotify — weren’t imposed any tax by the Philippine government.
“Facebook Ads Tax”
Salceda said that the idea of implementing this tax measure was to require that digital advertisements be made via Philippine representative of Google and Facebook, thus, the collection of the 12% value-added tax (VAT), as well as the corporate income tax among digital advertisers, will increase the current revenue base.
He also said that the “big money” was in “finding a way to tax the advertising on Facebook and Google”, adding that Google and Facebook dominated the online space.
“Lazada Tax”
Salceda said that only 50% of online vendors who sell their products and services via online marketplaces pay value-added tax (VAT).
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