Gersan M.

Gonzales BPA 3-FS1n

TRAIN LAW

“Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion”

A nation with less poverty is the ideal thing of every leaders of the world. In the case
of the Philippines, where poverty is eminent over other social issues present at the country
several policy and programs are implemented by the government and yet the poverty is still
at it large and rampant especially to the provinces and remote areas. The current
administration promised to its constituent that they will be having a policy that will help the
country and the individual citizens to lessen the poverty rate and help the marginalized
people. The TRAIN or known as Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion was introduced
by the administration as their strategy to alleviate the poverty and have an equitable change
between the social classes. This TRAIN Law have provisions that would decrease the
personal Income Tax (PIT) of an employee having an annual income of 250,000 pesos and
those who are earning 8 million pesos are subject to 35% tax. Another was the increase in
excise tax on fuels, tobacco, automobiles and sweetened beverages. Even the government
stamps, the estate and donor’s tax and they expand the Value-Added Tax (VAT) base. All of
this is part of this TRAIN Law by the government. The government sees it as a solution on
the poverty problem of the country. This is just the first step in the Comprehensive Tax
Reform Program (CTRP) of the administration to create a more just, simple, and more
effective system of tax collection. As per the constitution, where the rich will have a bigger
contribution and the poor will benefit more from the government’s programs and services
with the implementation of this law, they envisioned the country by 2020 and 2040 of having
a sustainable economy and more foreign investment, and a happier Filipinos, wherein the
poverty rate is already controllable and manageable by the government. These are the things
we are going to experience by the time this law been implemented.

The willingness of the government to alleviate the poverty is really a challenging

thing to do and as an individual citizen we must take part of it since we will be one
benefitting from this. A lot of research has been done by various groups and expertise on the
field of poverty and come-up with a lot of programs and projects to solve this crisis. But still
the crisis is still present and like there’s nothing we can do with it. There are a lot of factors
why a nation suffers from a great poverty. It might be because of the system of the
government, lack of education, economic crisis or much more. The Philippines where
poverty rate is somehow disturbing they come-up with something that will greatly affect the
Filipino people. In line with this was the introductory of the TRAIN law, where they stated
that this is the way to alleviate poverty and uplift the status of the Philippines on international
world view. In my point of view on the implementation and execution of this policy is
somehow a win-win for the government and its citizen. But as we dig deeper on this policy,
what are really the things needs to be examine and must check into to avoid confusion and
abuses. On my side, the idea of tax reform was really something that the Philippines need to.
Specially the poor and marginalized sector are always the one that will be affected by high
price commodities and services. Knowing that most of it are contractual and below the
minimum wage salary. I may say that this policy was an anti-poor policy wherein the most
affected by these are the marginalized people that will experience the increase of price in
commodities and services. Yes, it decreased the personal income tax of a regular earner but
considering from the data gathered by authorities says that most Filipino are below minimum
earner in result to it, this might be a problem that the government might face in the future.

The promise of alleviating the poverty is really need to prioritize. The unforeseen
problem can be resolve for having another dialogue of interest groups and expertise in the
field of poverty. To solve the loopholes and flaws that might occur during the execution of
the policy. Another thing was the value added tax, one senator stated that in the process of
having a tax reform they forgot the chance to lessen or decrease the value added tax.