Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III is hoping that the Senate will swiftly pass the proposed Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act (TRAIN) after President Duterte himself called on Congress anew to approve the measure in his second State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Monday.
Duterte said the TRAIN is designed to be pro-poor and that the vulnerable are at the heart of the tax reform. Congressional support for the TRAIN will ensure that its benefits are felt immediately, especially by the marginalized sectors.
“With the President’s certification of the TRAIN bill as an urgent and a priority measure, complemented by the personal appeal he made before our lawmakers in his Sona, we are hopeful that the Senate will pass the measure soon enough so that it could be implemented possibly by the third or fourth quarter of the year,” Dominguez said.
The House of Representatives approved House Bill 5636 with 246 votes on May 31. The Senate is seen to tackle the bill with Monday’s opening of the second regular session of the 17th Congress.
Apart from the tax-reform bill, Dominguez also said the government’s anti-red tape program and the substantial improvement in tax administration are among the key accomplishments of the Department of Finance (DOF) in the first year of the Duterte administration.
According to him, as a result of the close coordination between the bureaus of Internal Revenue (BIR) and Customs (BOC), the government executed “potentially the biggest collection of taxes” ever from a single entity in the country’s tax history.
This pertains to cigarette manufacturer Mighty Corp., whose owners have offered to shutter the business and pay the government P25 billion as settlement of its deficiency excise and income taxes after three criminal complaints were filed by the BIR for using counterfeit cigarette-tax stamps.
The total tax take could reach P30 billion when the value-added tax (VAT) and other fees are included in the computation of Mighty Corp.’s tax liabilities.
Dominguez further said the President’s acceptance of Mighty Corp.’s offer provides the BOC and the BIR greater reason to run after other big fishes that continue to cheat the government of billions of pesos in taxes.
He welcomed the President’s statement that acceptance of the settlement “does not preclude other criminal charges” against Mighty Corp. that the BIR may decide to file against it.