High growth, no new taxes, beautiful direction

A number of good news and beautiful reports that I read this week.

- Bienvenido S. Oplas Jr.

See these stories in The Philippine STAR: "No new taxes to be imposed, says DOF" (April 29), "Too early to tinker with growth targets" (April 29), "Tax revenues hit P932 billion in Q1" (April 30).

Similar stories were also reported in BusinessWorld: "Pangandaman sees no need to revise DBCC growth target" (April 28), "DOF withdraws proposal to hike capital gains tax" (April 30), "Fitch Ratings affirms PHL 'BBB' rating" (April 30).

The Department of Finance (DOF) press release last April 29, "DOF: No new taxes, fiscal position remains robust" was great music to my ears.

DOF Secretary Ralph Recto elaborated that "At this point, current revenues are more than sufficient to support our expenditure requirements. We are meeting our obligations, funding key programs, and growing the economy without having to impose new taxes on our kababayan. We are also decisively managing our deficit level, while maintaining a sustainable debt trajectory aligned with our Medium-Term Fiscal Framework (MTFF)."

Spot on, Secretary Recto, thank you. Fiscal sustainability and consolidation, better tax administration and avoidance of new taxes or tax hike. We need these along with spending control somewhere to reduce the need for more borrowings.