filipino honesty

[Admin]

Anyway the roomboys honesty made it in the local press and was picked up by local govt then the govt tourist agency. he was given a honesty award and consequently he now works in Dubai in a large hotel..

The good samaritan happens once so the press makes a big thing of it. I returned a handbag with credit cards in last year to a womans house, I never got in the papers.

Bribery & fraud is a crime in the Philippines yet it goes on everywhere, especially if your a Westerner. It starts as soons as you get off the plane, to when you leave. The airport charges you an illegal tax, but unless you pay, you can't leave the country. This is forum experience, not just mine.

If it's so safe why do Westerners live in walled castles with guards, and not with the general population? I wonder

[pigsinspace]

Originally posted by admin@Jul 6 2005, 10:08 AM
The good samaritan happens once so the press makes a big thing of it. I returned a handbag with credit cards in last year to a womans house, I never got in the papers.

Bribery & fraud is a crime in the Philippines yet it goes on everywhere, especially if your a Westerner. It starts as soons as you get off the plane, to when you leave. The airport charges you an illegal tax, but unless you pay, you can't leave the country. This is forum experience, not just mine.

If it's so safe why do Westerners live in walled castles with guards, and not with the general population? I wonder

Quoted post

Airport departure tax is not illegal..

check your ticket next time you fly from a british airport... you will find that if you fly yp the far east you will be charged £85 departure tax...

or what tax are you saying is illegal?

[peterdavid]

Originally posted by pigsinspace@Jul 9 2005, 12:43 PM
Airport departure tax is not illegal..

check your ticket next time you fly from a british airport... you will find that if you fly yp the far east you will be charged £85 departure tax...

or what tax are you saying is illegal?

Quoted post

I think the tax to which Keith is so correctly referring is the extra, cash only "travel tax" levied at the Philippines airport ONLY to filipinos (not to foreigners) because the filipino lives abroad and therefore buys her plane ticket in the country in which she lives. She is effectively penalised for travelling home to visit her family in the Philippines. The ticket she buys has already had tax paid on it, in her country of residence. All taxes have been paid. The extra illegal tax levied in the Philippines is just a scam against filipinos who visit their own country. They don't dare try and charge foreigners this tax as they wouldn't get away with it. It is an exercise in supreme crab mentality from the Philippines, effectively punishing the filipino who leaves the Philippines to move to a different country away from all the mess and hardships filipinos trapped there have to endure.

It's not the paying of a departure tax which Keith is saying is illegal - it's the fact that despite the fact it has already been paid to the country to which it is due at the time of the purchase of the tickets, the Philippines forces filipinos to pay it a second time just to escape back to the country she lives in. Proof that it has already been paid rests in the fact that they dont dare try and make foreigners pay this tax, only filipinos.

One of the basic principles of taxation is that taxation has to be equitable, fair and applied evenly, or the people won't pay it. Taxing people on the basis of their nationality, as the Philippines does, just to escape, defies every one of these basic rules and this fundamental lack of understanding of basic economics probably goes a long way to explaining why the Philippines is in such an economic mess.

You're right, airport departure tax is not illegal - it's just the second, duplicate, double taxing of filipinos only which is illegal. Why would the Philippines do this to their own people? Talk about picking on the easiest victims. It is just an extension of the same victimisation the corrupt Philippine government forces their citizens to suffer every day.

And not only that - there is then an EXTRA cash only airport fee on top!! Although this one is levied at everyone, it does smack of the Philippines taking its last chance to screw everyone out of their money one last time before they manage to escape back to civilisation.

[moi]

Originally posted by peterdavid@Jul 9 2005, 01:42 PM
I think the tax to which Keith is so correctly referring is the extra, cash only "travel tax" levied at the Philippines airport ONLY to filipinos (not to foreigners) because the filipino lives abroad and therefore buys her plane ticket in the country in which she lives.

The last time we went home, i never pay for the travel tax as the guy from the airport told me that i'm exempted because i am a resident of another country but still have to pay 100 pesos for administrative cost whatever that is.

[peterdavid]

The last time we went home, i never pay for the travel tax as the guy from the airport told me that i'm exempted because i am a resident of another country but still have to pay 100 pesos for administrative cost whatever that is.

Quoted post

So not only do you have to pay 100 pesos in order to NOT pay tax (what admin is involved in NOT paying tax - it's just another tax in itself), but it also appears the amount of tax levied is directly proportinal to the level of corruption inherent in the "official" at the airport who sizes up the filipino/a and decides on the spot how much he thinks he can get away with.....?

[pigsinspace]

Originally posted by moi@Jul 10 2005, 09:47 AM
The last time we went home, i never pay for the travel tax as the guy from the airport told me that i'm exempted because i am a resident of another country but still have to pay 100 pesos for administrative cost whatever that is.

Quoted post

100 pesos

1 whole pound

hey stay away its to expensive for u

[Pauldo]

Originally posted by peterdavid@Jul 9 2005, 02:42 PM
I think the tax to which Keith is so correctly referring is the extra, cash only "travel tax" levied at the Philippines airport ONLY to filipinos (not to foreigners) because the filipino lives abroad and therefore buys her plane ticket in the country in which she lives.

Quoted post

There is no tax to Filipinos flying into the Philippines. This 'travel tax' is paid by Filipinos LEAVING the Philippines, whether it be the first time or fiftieth. My wife paid it a few times when we first met, as we went to Thailand and SIngapore a few times on hols. After we eventually moved to the UK and returned to the PI later for a holiday she didn't have to pay because she had been overseas for more than a year. Something to do with not being a Philippines resident. They could still have asked for the money, but they checked her passport and told us we didn't need to pay. We would have been none the wiser if they had made her pay it

But, she did have to pay 100 pesos administration for them to tell her she didn't have to pay tax. Only 100 pesos, but half a days wages to the average unskilled Filipino :huh:
Cheers, Paul

[peterdavid]

Originally posted by Pauldo@Sep 4 2005, 06:56 PM
There is no tax to Filipinos flying into the Philippines. This 'travel tax' is paid by Filipinos LEAVING the Philippines, whether it be the first time or fiftieth. My wife paid it a few times when we first met, as we went to Thailand and SIngapore a few times on hols. After we eventually moved to the UK and returned to the PI later for a holiday she didn't have to pay because she had been overseas for more than a year. Something to do with not being a Philippines resident. They could still have asked for the money, but they checked her passport and told us we didn't need to pay. We would have been none the wiser if they had made her pay it

But, she did have to pay 100 pesos administration for them to tell her she didn't have to pay tax. Only 100 pesos, but half a days wages to the average unskilled Filipino :huh:
Cheers, Paul

Quoted post

Any time we went on holiday from the Philippines, we (necessarily) bought the tickets from the Philippines, and the travel tax was included in the travel agent ticket price. We both had to pay it. No problems with that, most countries charge some form of travel tax.

However, when you buy a ticket from the UK, for example on a return ticket to the philippines, you pay your tax at the point of purchase at the UK. All taxes paid. On leaving the philippines however, you carry on through, but the filipina gets stopped and forced to pay MORE tax, at the airport, to the Philippines, despite having a ticket expressly saying "inclusive of all taxes", and this extortionate rip off is done to her purely because she has a filipino passport and they want to rip off as much money from her as possible before leaving. She may have escaped the country, but for as long as she has a filipino passport, they'll take as much money from her as they can any way they can.

This is the rip off that people are talking about - where the filipino/a is forced to pay tax, a second time, to a country she doesn't live in, when she's already paid the tax on the ticket already.

Think about it - if you lived in the Philippines, made all your purchases there, paid your Philippine GST, paid your income tax, and then got a demand from the British government to pay the equivalent VAT on all your philippine purchases, on top of the philippine tax you'd already paid, just because you're british, would you be happy to pay it? I know where I'd tell them to go and shove their tax demand. But you can't do this when you're trying to escape the country and back to your own life, and the Philippines knows it, and that's why they do it. It quite literally is, by definition, extortion.

It's not the amount that irks (it's about £20 or so) - it's the principle.

[Pauldo]

This is the rip off that people are talking about - where the filipino/a is forced to pay tax, a second time, to a country she doesn't live in, when she's already paid the tax on the ticket already.

No she doesn't. If she actually lives overseas she is exempt from that tax, as I mentioned above. The tax is nothing to do with the ticket, as she would pay it if she were leaving by ship too.

It's not the amount that irks (it's about £20 or so) - it's the principle.

Try being an Indonesian, or working in Indonesia, and you'll be paying 'Fiscal Tax' when you leave. This version of travel tax is US$100 in that country. That's an awful lot of money to the average Indonesion, but they assume that because they are leaving the country they must be 'rich'.

[peterdavid]

Originally posted by Pauldo@Sep 7 2005, 07:06 AM
No she doesn't. If she actually lives overseas she is exempt from that tax, as I mentioned above. The tax is nothing to do with the ticket, as she would pay it if she were leaving by ship too.

It's a travel tax, so yes, it is payable by whatever means she wants to escape. But she still should not have to pay it - or the exempt fee - why should she have to pay any form of tax the government of a country in which she does not live? People of other nationalities don't have to pay it. A tax should be applied to all, or none - first basic rule of taxation is that if it's not equitable, people will resent it. It's just yet another unfair, corrupt, money grabbing crab mentality Philippines attitude, almost like they're giving you a final kick up the backside as you leave, because they're jealous you've managed to escape. They can't stop you going, but they'll cling on to you for every penny they can get before you go.

Try being an Indonesian, or working in Indonesia, and you'll be paying 'Fiscal Tax' when you leave. This version of travel tax is US$100 in that country. That's an awful lot of money to the average Indonesion, but they assume that because they are leaving the country they must be 'rich'.

Quoted post

I don't doubt it - I know the Philippines isn't alone (or even in the minority) of rip off and backward countries around the world, especially in Asia where the only true religion is Money. But when we all have an emotional connection to the Philippines (as opposed to any other country there), you sort of wish it would at least do something to start helping itself, rather than alienating every type of visitor it gets (and not many of them anyway comapred to its neighbours). At least have the brains to realise that not charging filipinas 100pesos on the way out, just to escape, means they don't leave the country feeling ripped off and exploited, and maybe then, not quite so many of them would be so desperate to rip up their philippine passports and forget about the hellhole they come from. But they don't even have the intelligence to think that the 100 pesos foregone today could lead to 100 times as much in return in the future. That measly £1 travel tax on the way out is, in itself, sufficient to stop us returning until her british passport comes through, whereas otherwise we would visit more. Think of how many thousands of pounds in tourist income they will lose because we don't visit, purely because of this rip off, whereas otherwise we would be over there, visiting and spending and helping their crumbling economy. It's not the amount of the tax, it's the principle.

[peterdavid]

Originally posted by Pauldo@Sep 4 2005, 06:56 PM
But, she did have to pay 100 pesos administration for them to tell her she didn't have to pay tax. Only 100 pesos, but half a days wages to the average unskilled Filipino :huh:
Cheers, Paul

Quoted post

Almost as ridiculous as the "express fees" you are forced to pay at the Bureau of Immigration as a foreigner leaving the Philippines. This express fee entitles you to wait several hours in the same "express queue" as everyone else. It's about as "express" as a ride in a Jeepney.

[walesrob]

Originally posted by pigsinspace@Jul 9 2005, 12:43 PM
you will find that if you fly yp the far east you will be charged £85 departure tax...

Quoted post

and do you have evidence of this? I've flown Hong Kong, Philippines and Singapore, but I never heard of this tax....maybe you refer to the standard travel tax which is paid on all journeys by air whether its domestic in UK or long-haul to Hong Kong. This tax has been in place for years and years!!

[peterdavid]

Originally posted by admin+Jul 6 2005, 10:08 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(admin &#064; Jul 6 2005, 10:08 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'>The good samaritan happens once so the press makes a big thing of it. I returned a handbag with credit cards in last year to a womans house, I never got in the papers.
[/b]

Precisely. It&#39;s such a rare event it makes national news. What a sad indictment of the country.


<!--QuoteBegin-admin@Jul 6 2005, 10:08 AM

If it&#39;s so safe why do Westerners live in walled castles with guards, and not with the general population? I wonder

Quoted post

[/quote]

Not just westerners - any filipino with money shuts themselves away from the masses inside huge walled subdivisions, and tries to pretend the outside mess of poverty and destruction doesn&#39;t exist.

There&#39;s a reason why the Philippines has failed to attract tourists in the same way that other SE Asian nations have - it&#39;s too corrupt and it turns everyone off. Even Vietnam is overtaking it. Vietnam&#33;?&#33;?&#33;?&#33;