Tax revolt: Wear black on Friday

Tax managers on Wednesday urged taxpayers to wear black on Oct. 30 and join an online protest against high taxes dubbed “Black Payday Friday.”

“Black Payday Friday aims to put income tax reform at the front and center of debates to convince the President to certify income tax reform as an urgent measure and for Congress to immediately enact the same. At the very least, Congress is urged to update the 19-year-old income tax brackets for individuals,” the Tax Management Association of the Philippines (TMAP) said in a statement.

Specifically, TMAP is urging participants in “Black Payday Friday” to wear black at work, and encourage their coworkers and friends to do the same; change their online avatars or profile pictures on social networking sites to black, and add the #TaxReformNow twibbon to their profile picture (https://twibbon.com/Support/tax-reform-now-2); take selfies or groupies on Oct. 30 while wearing black and holding a #TaxReformNow sign; and tweet or post status messages on what tax reform means to them using the hashtag #TaxReformNow.

“TMAP believes that the advocacy for income tax reform is still much relevant with both the executive and legislative branches of government softening their stance on income tax reform,” TMAP president Terence Conrad H. Bello said.

“While the compromise proposal involving only the updating of the tax brackets (as widely reported in the papers) is not what TMAP, along with other business groups that supported the Unity Statement on Income Tax Reform, had in mind, the compromise proposal would still alleviate somehow the plight of salaried individuals who are over-taxed and under-served,” he added.