DOF to submit other tax reform packages to Congress within the year

January 8, 2018

The Philippine government is eyeing about P2 trillion additional revenues once all the other packages of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program ( CTRP) are passed into law within the Duterte administration, an official said on Monday.

In a press briefing in Malacanang, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said that the Department of Finance is set to submit to Congress Packages 2, 3 and 4 of the CTRP within the year.

It was not yet sure if the Duterte government will ask Congress to pass Package 5 since some of its features are  included in the recently-passed Package 1-A of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act or Republic Act No. 10963, he said.

"Our infrastructure program is about P8 trillion. It is not wise to borrow everything. It's like business, you have your own capital. This (CTRP) is our capital. We would like to raise more or less something in the area of P2 trillion, around 25 percent of the total," he explained.

For the implementation of RA No. 10963, the government expects P786.4 billion revenue in the next five years up to 2022, Dominguez said.

For Package 1-B, which is pending in Congress, he said the government hopes to collect P182.7 billion in the next five years or a total of P969.2 billion for the entire TRAIN Package 1-A and B.

Package 1-B includes estate tax amnesty, general amnesty, motor vehicle user tax and relaxation of bank secrecy and automatic exchange of information.

Dominguez earlier said the Department of Finance will submit to Congress Package 2, which aims to lower corporate income taxes and modernize fiscal incentives, within January.

Package 4, which covers passive income and financial taxes, will be submitted to Congress in July.

Domiguez said the passage of all the CTRP packages is crucial for meeting the 3 percent of gross domestic product deficit target until 2022.

"If Congress does not pass sufficient tax reform, either the deficit will be breached or spending needs to be cut," he said.

Asked on the impact to inflation once all the tax packages are passed, Dominguez said, "it will increase by about seven tenths of the one percent because the other tax packages are not so much increasing taxes. It is just making it (tax) fair." Celerina Monte/DMS