Have you ever felt that your earnings were never enough for your needs and lifestyle? Do you always feel worried about the continuous price hikes on the commodities you purchase? Are you one of those Filipinos who complain about the tax charged in all the items and services you need?
It wouldn’t be surprising if you answered “yes” in any of these questions. Because among our neighboring countries, we, Filipinos, are the highest-paying taxpayers.
While well-performing ASEAN countries like Singapore and Malaysia are able to tone down Value Added Tax (VAT) charges at the minimum, the Philippines remains as the South East Asian country with the highest VAT of 12% in the ASEAN. Apart from this, the Philippines also ranks second in corporate income tax and personal income tax. Now that almost all purchases made are topped with tax, many Filipinos are struggling so hard to earn enough just to cover all their expenses.
With that, Travelbook.ph, the leading online travel agent (OTA) in the country, wants to ease such burden.
Just this July, Travelbook.ph launched its Free VAT Campaign wherein they shoulder the 12% VAT on all hotel bookings made by their customers.
“Every Filipino deserves the best experience when they travel. And at Travelbook.ph, we believe that it should start at the very moment that they do their actual bookings,” says Mr. Takumi Nakazawa, General Manager of the leading OTA.
All the customers have to do is to sign up at www.travelbook.ph and choose among the 3,300 affiliated hotels of Travelbook.ph for their trip. Travelers, then, will see that the VAT on their hotel bookings has been deducted from the total cost of their transaction. What’s more interesting is that on top of the deducted VAT, additional discounts may still be applied.