Quote:MAKATI Mayor and United Opposition (UNO) president Jejomar Binay said on Sunday the Bureau of Customs (BOC) should go after smugglers instead of taxing books, citing estimates that up to P140 billion is lost yearly to smuggling.

“The Bureau of Customs should go after smugglers and plug the losses. They should get their priorities straight and, for me, collecting P140 billion in lost tariffs and taxes should be their priority,” he said. “They are either neglectful of their duty or they tolerate smuggling,” he added.

The BOC has been consistently missing its collection targets. For the first quarter of 2009, the agency fell P5.2 billion short of its target of P51 billion. The amount was also P3 billion lower than the P48.9 billion in the same quarter last year.

“Their failure to meet their collection target should push the agency to go after smugglers to recover the lost taxes and duties. But by zeroing in on imported books, the BOC is resorting to a method that would require the least effort on their part, while jeopardizing the country’s book-development program,” he said.
Binay said Republic Act (RA) 8047, or the Book Development Act, is the law that governs the importation of books. In justifying the taxes, the Department of Finance (DOF) cited a provision of the Tariff and Customs Code.

Under RA 8047, the DOF and the BOC do not have the authority to approve or certify the release of imported books, he said. The law gives such authority to the National Book Development Board (NBDB).

“There is only one law governing the book industry and that is RA 8047, and on matters concerning importation of books, the authority designated by law is the NBDB, not the DOF and the BOC,” he said.

Binay said RA 8704 states that the NBDB is the only agency that certifies the importation of books, and book importers need only secure board certifications in order to import books without stating the type of books being imported.

The group Filipinos Against the Taxation of Books by Customs has said that taxation of books hinders the flow of knowledge and ideas by making books less accessible to people.

It added that the imposition of taxes on imported books by the BOC is in violation of a United Nations treaty known as the Florence Agreement of which the Philippines is a signatory.

Quote:MANILA, Philippines – The Bureau of Customs’ (BOC) revised interpretation of a law that granted tax-free importation of foreign books could soon make international best-selling books scarce in local bookstores and out of the reach of ordinary Filipino book lovers.

The new Customs policy has generated protests from Filipino book lovers who have expressed their concern in personal online blogs and Web forums over possibly higher-priced books and novels.

They have focused on Finance Undersecretary Espele Sales who upheld the BOC position on a provision in Republic Act 8047, or the Book Publishing Industry Development Act of 1995, previously used as basis for tax- or duty-free importation of books.

Sales backed the BOC’s claim that there was no provision in RA 8047 granting tax-free book importation.

The provision stated that there would be “tax- and duty-free importation of books or raw materials to be used in book publishing.”

Sales and the BOC agreed that “only books or raw materials to be used in book publishing” are to be exempt from taxes and duties.

Critics said their interpretation has violated the 1950 Florence Agreement on the Importation of Educational, Scientific and Cultural Materials, of which the Philippines was a signatory in 1952.

The treaty has provided for duty-free importation of books to guarantee the free flow of “educational, scientific, and cultural materials” between countries and declared that imported books should be duty-free.

But Sales reportedly brushed off this argument, saying novels and reading books are “not educational.”

The imposition of duties on foreign books has caused book importers to reconsider future importations due to higher importation costs for the books.

Book industry insiders said the importation of new books has virtually stopped in the last few months.

This, in turn, has caused a scarcity of new book titles at local popular books stores.

The BOC started its new policy when Customs examiner Rene Agulan imposed a duty on an importer who brought in the best-selling “Twilight” novel of Stephanie Meyer, which was recently made into a blockbuster movie.

Unfortunately, the unidentified book importer paid the duty imposed by Agulan, setting a precedent for duties to be imposed on other book shipments.

Quote:Sales reportedly brushed off this argument, saying novels and reading books are “not educational.”

(05-13-2009, 02:56 PM)AppleHead Wrote: They want to be environmentally conscious, now stop wasting paper.

/sarcasm

Quote:"Sales reportedly brushed off this argument, saying novels and reading books are “not educational.”