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BY GLENDA SOLOGASTOA
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Thursday, May 4, 2017
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ILOILO City – Cooperatives across the country will stage a synchronized rally today pressing the government to continue exempting cooperatives from paying taxes.
Here, the rally will be held at the Freedom Grandstand from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
There are around 400 registered cooperatives in this city, province of Iloilo and Guimaras.
“This is a show of force,” said Prof. Samie Billanes, chairperson of the National Cooperative Development Council (NCDC) and Regional Cooperative Development Council (RCDC), and general manager of the Western Visayas Alliance of Cooperatives (WVAC).
Western Visayas has around 1,400 registered cooperatives. All over the country, there are an estimated 25,000 cooperatives with 14 million members.
The cooperatives are specifically against the repeal of Articles 60 and 61 of Republic Act 9520 (The Tax Exemption of Cooperatives) as proposed by bills pending before the Senate and the House of Representatives – House Bill No. 231, Senate Bill No. 229, House Bill No. 4688 and Senate Bill No. 4774.
In one proposal, all cooperatives will be subjected to a value-added tax of 12 percent.
Once this happens, prices of products produced by cooperatives would increase and this won’t make them competitive anymore, warned Billanes.
“Kon gamay ang kita sang kooperatiba at the end of the year gamay man ang ila ideklarar (tax),” he added.
Micro and small cooperatives would be placed in the most disadvantageous spot, Billanes lamented.
He claimed “82.5 percent” of the 25,000 cooperatives in the country are micro-cooperatives.
“Once i-tax ang kooperatiba, ang iya net surplus or kita sa bilog nga tuig, 30 percent gid sina ibayad mo sa gobyerno. Kon magtrato sila daw parehas na sa corporation,” said Billanes./PN
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