{"id":377828,"date":"2022-10-17T06:06:54","date_gmt":"2022-10-16T20:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=377828"},"modified":"2022-10-17T06:06:54","modified_gmt":"2022-10-16T20:06:54","slug":"ex-tinian-senator-dela-cruz-three-others-oppose-bill-to-increase-of-tobacco-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/ex-tinian-senator-dela-cruz-three-others-oppose-bill-to-increase-of-tobacco-taxes\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Tinian senator Dela Cruz, three others oppose bill to increase of tobacco taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Victor B. Hocog<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A bill that seeks to increase tobacco taxes, tie the tax rate to inflation, and invest revenues from the tax into health promotion and disease prevention faced strong opposition during a public hearing at the Tinian Courthouse last Wednesday.<\/p>\n

At the hearing on House Bill 22-54 before the Senate Committee on Fiscal Affairs, all four who spoke, including former Tinian senator Jose M. Dela Cruz, opposed the legislation.<\/p>\n

In reviewing the proposed legislation, Dela Cruz believes the timing is not right.<\/p>\n

The House of Representatives had already passed the bill and it is now before the Senate Committee on Fiscal Affairs, chaired by Sen. Victor B. Hocog (R-Rota). Rep. Christina E. Sablan (D-Saipan) is the principal author of the legislation.<\/p>\n

House Bill 22-54 seeks to update the definition of tobacco products in the CNMI\u2019s excise tax laws; bring tobacco tax rates to the recommended level; set tobacco tax rates to increase with inflation; and invest tobacco revenues in health promotion and disease prevention and control programs in the CNMI.<\/p>\n

Dela Cruz said this is not the first time the Legislature raised taxes for tobacco.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to go back and try to look\u2026if the data show that, by raising taxes on this product, it deters people from continuing to use it,\u201d Dela Cruz said.<\/p>\n

As everyone knows, he said, majority of products on Tinian already cost a lot and that the people are feeling the crunch. \u201cSo I feel that this is not the right time to do this at this point. So I totally object [to this bill],\u201d Dela Cruz said.<\/p>\n

Tinian Commerce resident director Susan Perez said she is not supporting the bill for one reason\u2014economy. \u201cSo I am not supporting it as a business person myself. We need money for our economy. We need money for our island,\u201d Perez said.<\/p>\n

She said when people do not buy, businesses will not be able to have enough income and sales. \u201cTo make it short, no. I\u2019m not supporting it,\u201d Perez said.<\/p>\n

Others who also spoke against the bill were David Evangelista and Guillermina Cepeda.<\/p>\n

Saipan Tribune learned that there were some in attendance that have submitted their written testimony for the next public hearing on the bill on Saipan.<\/p>\n

The committee also held a public hearing on Rota Tuesday, during which Mayor Efraim M. Atalig opposed it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bill that seeks to increase tobacco taxes, tie the tax rate to inflation, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":377829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[191],"class_list":["post-377828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-dela-cruz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377828","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}