Tax target

The Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) “shame campaign”  that focuses on tax delinquent doctors sparked outrage in the medical community whose leaders insist they are paying the right amount to the government.

With its  trillion peso budget target, the BIR and Aquino administration is pulling all stops to pressure other sectors to pay their fair share.

In case anyone missed it, the one-page advertisement showed a teacher working on a blackboard while a doctor sits atop along with the message stating that teachers shore up the country with their taxes while the others live off their sacrifice, which in this  case are the doctors.

Naturally the indignant doctors would say otherwise but anyone familiar with the medical profession knows that  specialists can enjoy other revenue sources other than being employed either as a consultant or as a full time specialist in a private hospital.

Doctors aren’t barred from setting up their own clinics in private or public hospitals.  Aside from holding their own clinic,  they can also work as teachers or advisors  in private companies in their extra time.

That’s the perks of the profession. Their expertise is especially valuable in this country which has been seeing an exodus of talent to greener pastures abroad either as doctors or even nurses because of  dismal working conditions exacerbated by a government hell-bent on collecting more taxes from them.

While the Aquino administration may look on doctors as cash cows,  it y may have conveniently forgotten other lucrative sources of taxes like telecom companies which earn billions of pesos thanks to the proliferation and affordability of mobile devices and the wired public’s  need for inter-connectivity.

The BIR along with the Customs Bureau aren’t  the most  trusted government agencies. The shame campaign being waged against perceived tax delinquents may be counter-productive in the long run.

Collecting taxes is no popularity contest but surely there are better ways to encourage prompt payment of taxes.

It doesn’t  have to be the “dancing collectors” strategy of  Cebu City Hall or the  Department of Health–though  such gimmicks are a better fit for the health department–but BIR chief Kim Henares surely doesn’t lack for bright men and women who can think of better strategies to raise revenues.

The BIR has  earned the public’s ire in its insistence in collecting taxes from contributions given by foreign donors across the world for Yolanda typhoon victims.

Now it’s crossing swords with the country’s medical community.

Henares better make sure she sets her agency’s  crosshairs on other sectors that earn billions but pay less taxes than doctors, and  not promote the President’s sister as the country’s biggest taxpayer.