air’s fair. The
attrition law that allows the dismissal of internal revenue and customs
officials for repeatedly failing to meet their collection targets is in place.
So if targets are not met, the heads of the heads of agencies should also roll.
Before the passage of the attrition law, revenue officials
could only be removed for cause. If they kept their noses clean or were smart
enough to leave no evidence behind their money-making activities, their stay was
guaranteed under civil service laws until they reached the retirement age of 65.
Or even beyond by the documented cases in recent years of BIR and Customs
officials asking the courts to allow them to change their birth dates so they
could stay in their posts a few more years.
The BIR and the Customs commissioners did not enjoy such
guaranteed stays. They could be replaced at any time by the appointing powers.
And many were replaced for failure to meet their revenue goals.
Now that their subordinates could be sacked for failure to
deliver, the commissioners should also be subject to the same standard. And for
good measure, the finance secretary should also be fired in case of his failure
to deliver.
(We understand some customs collectors have filed a case
questioning the attrition law. Be that as it may, we are talking about
principle. If the revenue collectors raised more than their "quota," they would
share in the surplus. If they failed to do so they would be assigned to
Tawi-Tawi or some far-flung station.)
Poor revenue collections was in the news lately. A few dozen
luxury cars recovered in a raid on a Makati repair and maintenance shop were
found to have been brought in without their owners paying the proper duties.
Transport Secretary Leandro Mendoza has squeezed a number of Land Transportation
Office officials in Cebu for allowing the registration of the "hot" cars. Not
one Customs official, however, has been placed on the carpet for allowing the
entry of the vehicles.
Meanwhile, the administration isn’t budging on the call of
Sen. Mar Roxas to suspend the 12 percent value added tax on oil to help ease the
impact on the ordinary people of the spiraling crude prices in the world market.
The rich are patently not carrying their share of the tax
burden. The common man, on the other hand, is being squeezed between flat income
and rising prices, 12 percent of which in the form of VAT is being skimmed off
the top by government.
The injustice of it all could make a political reactionary and conservative
welcome a revolution.
