ONE can’t help but say aloud “You’re out of your mind!” to anyone who proposes either new or raise taxes at a time when businessmen are already losing sleep over the global economic and financial crises, and workers are getting apprehensive about losing their jobs.

It’s an understandable reaction. Just look around, everybody is trying to cut on costs, improve efficiencies and save, if it’s still possible. And take a close look, too, at the quarterly reports of publicly listed corporations, starting from the top. They stress measures to reduce operating expenses so these would not eat up too much of their declining revenues.

The same is true with individual families. A recent survey showed an increasing number of Filipinos who missed at least one meal in the past three months. Many are forced to forgo at least one of the standard three meals a day to make ends meet.

I watched with great concern one television commercial in which a housewife wanted to buy a kilo of meat, but the vendor told her the price was high. So the housewife bought half a kilo, and cooked the meat with a small cube of meat flavoring. The family enjoyed their meal as if it had a kilo of meat. The soup was great because of the flavoring, but the family actually ate just half of the meat they used to enjoy.

Now we hear about plans to delay the reduction in the corporate-tax rate to 30 percent from the current 35 percent from 2009 to a later date (or until the crisis is over), raise taxes on “sin” products (tobacco and liquor) or even to revive the proposed tax on text messages.

I am sure people will be outraged by these proposals. They’ll boomerang on the faces of their proponents!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not against measures that will generate more revenues that, in turn, can be used to improve infrastructure, health, education and other public services.

In particular, I have always supported raising taxes on sin products for health and economic reasons: Making these products expensive will discourage people from buying them, in the process avoiding health problems and channeling their money to more important items, like food and clothing.

On the proposed postponement of the corporate-tax-rate reduction, this is the worst time to do it. First of all, companies have already taken into account the lower tax rate in preparing their business plans for next year. Extending the effectivity of the 35-percent tax rate would mean an unexpected increase in their expenses.

No businessman likes surprises, especially when they mean additional expenses.

On hindsight, the increase in the corporate-tax rate to 35 percent should have been done gradually instead of a one-step jump. At the same time, the return from 35 percent to a lower tax rate should have been done the same way: gradually, so the impact on government revenues would not be sudden.

But, as I said, it’s too late to make the correction now. It should serve as a lesson for future plans for tax measures.

So let’s keep the status quo, as far as taxes are concerned. Businesses—big or small—and consumers—rich or poor—are already hard-up as they are because of the US recession, which is already spreading to other developed countries, and its impact on small economies such as ours, which we have not really felt in full yet.

Actually, the government is in a much better financial condition than many businesses. The package of revenue measures that we passed several years ago has generated substantial amounts of funds. That’s the reason our national budget has gone up to the trillion-peso level and why the government has been able to subsidize rice for poor families and fuel for public-utility drivers.

Compared with the private sector, the government needs only to spend wisely by following priorities, improving efficiency and reducing leakages, particularly to corruption.

Of course, when the global crises are over and things are back to normal—meaning businesses are generating profits again and consumers are stable in their jobs—then we can talk about the imposition of new or an increase in taxes.

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