Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said he is optimistic Congress will approve the proposed Comprehensive Tax Reform Program because it will make the current system simpler, fairer and more efficient.
“If you look at the tax reform package, and see and weigh the benefits and the pain that it might cause, you won’t need to use any political capital because it’s a good package,” Dominguez said in a statement over the weekend.
“So he may not even have to spend a single iota [political capital] on this tax package,” Dominguez said, referring to President Rodrigo Duterte.
The first package of the CTRP, now pending at the House ways and means committee under a bill filed by its chairman, Rep. Dakila Carlo Cua, aims to lower personal income tax rates and the donor and estate taxes.
Cua’s House Bill No. 4774, which is endorsed by the Department of Finance, aims to broaden the tax base by adjusting excise tax rates for automobiles and fuel and plugging leakages in the value-added tax, but retaining current exemptions enjoyed by seniors and persons with disabilities, among other revenue-enhancing measures.
Dominguez said he was hoping the entire CTRP would be passed in six months, “but the reality of the situation is it cannot be done.”
“The last big tax [reform] package took five years to pass, two Congresses. I hope to finish it in one Congress, three years,” he said.