Government eyes additional revenues from excise, global taxes

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April 10, 2026 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Finance (DOF) is considering eight “new and revised” tax measures to bolster government revenues, including a global minimum tax on companies and additional excise taxes, Secretary Frederick Go said.

Go said the agency is eyeing about eight tax measures to boost the country’s revenue, as collections alone remain insufficient to fund state programs.

“We have actually reviewed eight different taxes, perhaps the most important one, since it’s the Committee of Ways and Means, is the global minimum tax,” he said.

The push comes despite earlier assurances from Executive Secretary and former finance secretary Ralph Recto that no new taxes would be introduced until the end of the Marcos administration.

“There is this initiative of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) to impose a global minimum tax on foreign corporations doing business all over the world. Based on our computation, this is perhaps the single largest source of additional revenue for our coffers,” Go said.

The DOF earlier said it is weighing a domestic top-up tax to align the country with the OECD framework, under which multinational enterprises with global revenues of more than €750 million must pay a 15-percent global minimum tax.

Go added that the measure does not affect foreign direct investors in the country and remains “tax neutral” to companies.

“Other options that we have looked at are additional excise taxes on several industries that are already being taxed with the excise taxes,” he said.

Go also said most of the eight measures are new and revised.

“We will provide them to you as soon as possible. I think we should be able to complete this process in 30 days and forward it to the honorable House of Representatives,” he said.

Asked for additional details, Marikina Rep. Miro Quimbo, chairman of the committee on ways and means said the DOF has submitted earlier tax measure proposals but would wait for the final list.

“The (DOF) already submitted the global tax, single-use plastic. Those are tax measures that don’t affect the poor,” Quimbo told The STAR.

Go also explained that the government’s P6.8 trillion budget for 2026 will far outpace projected tax revenues of P4.4 trillion and P400 billion from non-tax sources, leaving a P2 trillion deficit to be financed by the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr).

“Having said that, it’s our job to collect the taxes, mandated to collect. We have to borrow money that is missing — or the gap to fund the planned expenditure also approved by the Congress. Every time you remove something, we have to find replacement of revenues,” he said.

These were the response of DOF to the proposal by Caloocan 2nd district Rep. Edgar Erice to raise funds by granting amnesty and regularization to undocumented Chinese immigrants who are willing to pay millions of fees.

The country should find “extraordinary action” amid “extraordinary time,” Erice said.

“On the general amnesty of aliens in the Philippines, I think I will have to defer to the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Immigration on this matter,” Go said.

Data from the BTr showed that the budget deficit narrowed by 94.4 percent to P5.8 billion from P103.1 billion in the same period in 2025, amid faster revenue collections.