House ways and means committee chair shrugs off threat by PEZA locators to leave if CITIRA bill is OKd

September 18, 2019

The chairman of the House committee on ways and means shrugged off on Wednesday the threat of business locators inside the Philippine Economic Zone Authority they would leave the country if the proposed Corporate Income Tax and Incentives Rationalization Act (CITIRA) is passed into law.

In an economic briefing in Malacanang, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, also the chairman of the committee, said those opposing the CITIRA bill, including the PEZA locators, seemed to have only "ideological resistance to change."

"Once they read the law, they will stay. They will stay. Under the law—theirs’ is only ideological resistance to change; but it’s always change for the better, for a more predictable—they are threatened, how come some of them keep registering?" he said.

Salceda expressed the belief that new Philippine investors do not need incentives because the country "has more to offer."

"You know what, the willfulness of the top management of the Philippines is one of the best attractions here actually. They see that the President really will finish the infrastructure; that there are improvements in the ease of doing business; in the predictability of policy," he said. 

"The best thing to do with CITIRA is approve it. Because some weakness in the FDI ( foreign direct investments) is merely due to the fact they want to wait to the final form. I think we’re very close to the final form. No GIE (Gross Income Earned), no forever, more performance-based incentives. And therefore, we are offering the business sector a better proposition than before," Salceda explained.

PEZA Director General Charito Plaza earlier said locators in PEZA are preparing for their "exit plans" if the  proposed CITIRA bill would remove the "ease of doing business."

"All other exporters are getting ready of their exit plans if the rationalization of incentives will remove the ease of doing business and expose them to the red tapes and corruption once dealing with different agencies of government which will happen in a CIT regime rather than the present GIE (Gross Income Earned) regime which will even assure the government of gross and bigger share of the taxes paid by export industries under PEZA," she said earlier. Celerina Monte/DMS