They're Taxing Our Beauty Products?! #DontTaxMyBeauty

How timely is it that we're telling you about our basic makeup tips for beginners today and we also hear about how the Philippine government is planning to tax beauty products and procedures. I mean, as if we're not paying enough to slay all day everyday!

Be in the know about this issue. Here's an article from Manila Bulletin:

House leaders are rallying behind the proposed imposition of a 10- to 30-percent excise tax on beauty and cosmetic products and services.

Deputy speaker and Batangas Rep. Raneo Abu said the proposal made by AKO BICOL party-list Rep. Rodel Batocabe deserves the chamber’s support and that the Department of Finance should reconsider their proposal to tax fuel products.

“I support aesthetic tax and other taxes like tax on sweetened beverages because these products are usually used or consumed by those who are in the higher income earners level,” he said.

“Fuel excise tax will affect all sectors and will have a ripple effect on products and services which will impact most the low income earners and the poor. Public transportation and of goods will be hit the most.”

Batocabe insisted that those who want to be “attractive, good-looking and gorgeous” should pay for the cost rather than the poor, who will be definitely be affected by the government’s plan to increase the tax on petroleum products.

He has asked the government to impose tax on P200-billion beauty industry, which has remained relatively unregulated.

Isabela Rep. Rodolfo “Rodito” Albano III, a senior member of the 12-man House contingent to the powerful Commission on Appointments, said it is about time to impose “luxury” tax rather than increase tax on gasoline and impose a P6-per-liter levy on diesel, kerosene, cooking gas and bunker fuel.

“We should push for vanity tax because that is what we call tax on luxury,” he said.

For his part, Quezon City Rep. Winston “Winnie” Castelo, chairman of the House committee on Metro Manila development, said Batocabe’s proposal is worth considering.

“Ordinary people and hardworking employees should not carry the burden of paying higher taxes,” he said. “Instead we should take a second look of people engaging in vanity.”

Batocabe noted that since 2011, the Philippine market has observed a steady rise in beauty and cosmetic sales due to the increasing demand for raw materials and finished products for skin whitening and anti-aging among male and female consumers.

Under Batocabe’s proposal, cosmetic surgeries, such as nose lift and contouring, eye bag removal, eye slit reconstruction, breast augmentations, and liposuction, which can be classified as non-essential goods, can be subjected to excise tax, with the exemption of reconstructive surgeries for the correction of deformities that are congenital or acquired through accidents or disease.

“Tax revenues from the beauty industry, if properly collected has the capability of surpassing even the sin taxes collected from tobacco and alcohol,” Batocabe said.

The Philippines is currently imposing 1- to 10-percent tariff duty and a 12-percent value-added tax on imported beauty products.

If you were too lazy to read that all, long story short is they want to tax beauty products and procedures because they deem that mid- to high-earning women (and now even men, actually) are the ones able to afford these. Making it only right for the government to get a slice of that good.

I mean, seriously? Everyone deserves to look and feel beautiful without having to pay so much. We deserve beauty and style upsized without having to pay extra. TBH, we're being fair to the government already.

Read about this article to get more informed as well. Cause it's just so unfair.

Let us know what you think about this. But us, we're fighting for #DontTaxMyBeauty. Spread the word, girls!