The Philippines
In the early 1990s, the Filippino Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) protested against the Philippine government’s plans to expand VAT on a range of items, including on pesticides, which would have raised production costs for small farmers who were powerless to pass on the burden to traders and millers.9 Citizens argued that the VAT violated the Philippine constitution, which states that ‘congress shall evolve a progressive system of taxation’ (Article VI, Section 28). However, despite a strong campaign against the tax, the VAT law was passed in Congress. Initially the FDC’s focus was mainly on the debt problem and how the government should address it in a just and efficient manner. But the introduction of VAT, which was in response to IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank loan conditions, triggered the FDC to get involved in tax campaigns – as they saw that the unjust tax and the debt problem were inseparable. The FDC launched a Citizen’sTax Reform Seminar, and since then has been actively involved in engaging the government in tax reform campaigns.
Sierra Leone
In 2010, following the implementation of a GST in Sierra Leone, a broad range of civil society groups, including networks and coalitions (from health and agriculture to animal welfare, education and mining), met to challenge the imposition of the GST as a regressive government policy and to plan tax advocacy and research.The forum developed and published the ‘Freetown Declaration onTax and Development’.10