The Department of Finance (DOF) last Friday committed to submit to Congress the follow up package of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP) within the month following enactment of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) last December.
Package 2 of the CTRP aims to scale back the corporate-income tax while rationalizing the tax incentives for businesses. Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III claims the package to be revenue neutral.
He subsequently instructed the DOF to ensure its effective implementation and to immediately submit to the Congress early-2018 Package 2 of the CTRP.
“We are very pleased that the legislature passed the TRAIN bill. The President signed it into law, although there are some provisions that he vetoed…. We are moving forward with the implementation of the tax reform,”
Dominguez said.
The TRAIN promises to provide hefty income-tax cuts for the majority of Filipino taxpayers while raising additional funds to help support the government’s accelerated spending on its “Build, Build, Build” and social services programs.
The TRAIN or Republic Act (RA) 10963 represents the initial gains under the CTRP as Congress has passed two-thirds of the expected revenues from the first package and the remaining third under Package 1B of the law.
The remaining one-third covers provisions on an estate-tax amnesty, a general tax amnesty, the proposed adjustments in the motor vehicle-users charge, the amendments to the bank secrecy law and automatic exchange of information.
Some 70 percent of the incremental revenues generated from the TRAIN will help underwrite the so-called golden age of infrastructure under President Duterte, while the remaining 30 percent will be used for social-protection programs.
Earlier, the DOF said it expects RA 10963 to generate estimated revenues of some P130 billion on its first year of implementation.