President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday ordered the country’s economic managers to meet with sugar industry leaders in Manila today to act on the retention of tariff on cheap imported sugar beyond 2010, and on the complaints of some sugar cooperatives against the imposition of Advance VAT on their refined sugar.

Bacolod Rep. Monico Puentevella said he would host the meeting in Congress this afternoon to be attended by Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila, Finance Secretary Margarito Teves, Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, Sugar Regulatory Administrator Rafael Coscolluela, Sugar Board Members Archie Amara and Luis Tongoy, and Bernard Tebol of the Confederation of Sugar Producers Associations.

Gov. Isidro Zayco and Rep. Jose Carlos Lacson (Neg. Occ., 3rd District) raised the concerns of the sugar industry with the president on her arrival in Negros Occidental.

And in the afternoon she met with Coscolluela, Amara, Tongoy, Trebol, Puentevella and Presidential Adviser for Western Visayas Raul Banias at L’Fisher Hotel to discuss industry concerns.

Coscolluela said they explained to the president that the bid for an extension of tariffs on sugar under the ASEAN Free Trade Area agreement has undergone the process and needs the formal endorsement of the DTI before the ASEAN ministers.

The president wants the process hastened so she arranged the meeting with her economic managers, he added.

On the call for the lifting of the Advance VAT, the president expressed concern over the negative implications of such a move on the country’s revenue generation targets, he said.

Concern was expressed that anyone could just organize a cooperative and avail of sweeping exemptions and nobody ends up paying taxes, Coscoluela said.

Coscolluela said it was proposed that the amount collected from sugar passing through cooperatives that are not qualified for exemption from advance VAT be returned to the sugar industry in the form of fertilizer subsidy from the government.

“It’s a proposal that was thrown around and, in principle, the President was amendable to it,” he said.

She wants us to sit down with her economic managers to discuss the fertilizer subsidy proposal and find an immediate solution to the complaints in the advance VAT, Coscolluela said.

Meanwhile, any dispute between the cooperatives and the BIR in court will have to be solved there, but the president also hopes that win-win solutions can be reached, he said.

Yesterday some members of sugar cooperatives held a caravan around Bacolod City calling for the ouster of BIR Region 12 Director Rodita Galanto. They said cooperatives under the law should be exempt from taxes.

Rep. Jeffrey Ferrer (Neg. Occ., 4th District) said last night he submitted a letter of Fr. Armando Onion, chairman of the Ma-ao Parish Multi Purpose Cooperative Inc., airing his complaints against the BIR and his opposition to the imposition of Advance VAT on refined sugar of cooperatives.

Onion has been complaining that the BIR would not release his cooperative’s Authority to Release Refined Sugar unless it shows its books of accounts for 2005.

Galanto has said she was merely doing her job and had not violated any laws.

Ferrer said members of Onion’s cooperatives are his constituents in the fourth district so it was his obligation to bring their concerns to the president, but he is leaving the matter to her economic managers to address today.*CPG

source:visayandailystar

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