THE administration-allied National Unity Party on Tuesday backed the Duterte administratiom’s tax reform package.
The 24-man political party led by party president and Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles and Deputy Speaker and Capiz Rep. Fredenil Castro declared a party stand to support the immediate passage of House Bill 4774.
The bill is authored by Quirino Rep. Dakila Carlo Cua, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means.
“The NUP will take the lead in ensuring the early passage of the proposed tax reform bill containing the Duterte administration’s first package of new measures aimed at generating additional revenues to sustain the country’s high economic growth,” Nograles told news conference.
“We will extend our support to the proposal to lower personal income taxes…reduce estate and donors taxes which are designed to broaden tax compliance among the nation’s taxpayers,” Nograles added.
The NUP, one of the members of the House of Representatives’ supermajority of Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, is composed of 24 district congressmen and 17 party-list members allied with the party.
HB 4774, if passed into law, is expected to generate P206.8 billion in revenues.
The NUP said: “With the administration’s ambitious infrastructure program in the pipeline and several large scale Public Private Partnership projects in the horizon, we need to muster enough revenues to ensure the smooth implementation of these projects.”
The group said “the additional revenues of the government will also contribute to the attainment of the Duterte administration’s 10 point socioeconomic agenda which seeks to reduce the country’s poverty incidence to 14 percent by 2022 from 21.6 percent in 2016.”
