The House of Representatives on Wednesday defeated a bill that would have increased the excise tax on imported betel nut after failing to get the needed three-fourths vote to pass it.<\/p>\n
Rep. Blas Jonathan T. Attao (Ind-Saipan) introduced House Bill 19-72 to increase the excise tax in importing areca nut (betel nut) into the CNMI.<\/p>\n
Thirteen members voted yes, three voted no, and one decided not to cast his vote. Reps. Anthony T. Benavente (Ind-Saipan), Francis S. Taimanao (Ind-Saipan), and Ralph N. Yumul (Ind-Saipan) were absent.<\/p>\n
The Senate made amendments on HB 19-72 to increase the excise tax from 2.5 percent to 7.5 percent. That was why House Speaker Rafael S. Demapan (R-Saipan), vice speaker Joseph P. Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan), and minority leader George N. Camacho (R-Saipan) chose not to support the measure. They said the increase was too much.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly felt that it should go through the committee for further review but the Legislature now is in a lame duck session and any bill that requires appropriation or related to government operations requires a three-fourths vote,\u201d said Demapan. \u201cWe see a huge difference in the increase. The bill\u2019s intent is good. No doubt that we should control and impose additional tax but it was just too high. Sometimes timing is a factor and I believe the bill would be re-introduced in the 20th Legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camacho said the increase would have an adverse effect on stores that sell betel nut. \u201cThere are some who are already saying that they won\u2019t sell any more [betel nut] if the excise tax increases to $5 per lb,\u201d said Camacho.<\/p>\n
Last September, Gov. Ralph DLG Torres signed into law a separate bill, HB 19-65 authored by Rep. Lorenzo I. Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan), that prohibits the sale, offer, or giving of betel nut to minors (under 18).<\/p>\n
Other bills<\/strong><\/p>\n The House also passed several other bills while deciding to send some to their respective committees for further review.<\/p>\n HB 19-22 (to establish a new public highway on Tinian), HB 19-85 (to prohibit smoking in vehicles in the presence of minors), HB 19-110 (mandating Customs to have K-9 units), HB 19-118 (to include lime in Pure Food and Drug Control), HB 19-141 (ID card requirements), HB 19-153 (to prohibit taking and selling of certain sizes of fish species), HB 19-155 (to establish a patient medical referral office), HB 19-189 (to empower the Commonwealth Ports Authority to grant concessions), and HB 19-211 (funding for family violence prevention) all passed the House.<\/p>\n HB 19-23 (minimum wage increase), HB 19-52 (to include the Northern Marianas College and Northern Marianas Trades Institute as recipients of the business gross revenue tax), HB 19-71 (requiring public schools to prepare a fiscal year budget), HB 19-103 (waiving contractual obligations of educational assistance recipients), and HB 19-109 (penalty for repeat offenders) were sent back to the committees on Ways and Means, Education, and Judiciary and Governmental Operations, respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The House of Representatives on Wednesday defeated a bill that would have increased the excise…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4],"tags":[1198,1860,194,8042],"class_list":["post-243533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-fitness","category-local-news","tag-commonwealth-ports-authority","tag-hb","tag-house-bill","tag-last-september"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}