House Speaker Martin Romualdez on Wednesday urged the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to simplify the estate tax amnesty application procedure and allow online filing, especially for heirs who are overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
The proposed two-year new extension of the amnesty on estate taxes is expected to benefit at least one million Filipino families, the Speaker added.
Republic Act (RA) 11956 grants Filipinos an extension until June 14, 2025, to fulfill their estate tax obligations after the law expired last June 14.
Last Tuesday, the measure lapsed into law.
Romualdez said the pandemic and the financial and economic difficulties it had caused made it hard for thousands of heirs, especially those in the provinces, to take advantage of the benefits of the current RA 11213, or the Tax Amnesty Act, enacted on Feb. 14, 2019.
“They have already suffered enough because of the pandemic. Let us not make the situation more difficult for them by giving them more time to avail themselves of those benefits,” he said.
If the President does not act on a proposed law submitted by Congress, it will lapse into law after 30 days from receipt.
Romualdez said the number of potential beneficiaries was supplied by concerned agencies during the House deliberations on the extension proposal, contained in House Bill 7909, of which the Speaker is the principal author.
He said the proposed new extension would give beneficiaries enough time to avail themselves of the amnesty and lower tax rates so they could settle their estate tax obligations and use the properties and other assets they have inherited from their dead loved ones.
He added that target beneficiaries include legal heirs, estate executors, and administrators. The Speaker stressed that the payment of estate taxes would not only result in additional tax revenue for the government but in the faster distribution and use of inherited properties like land as well.
The sale and/or development of those properties would generate income, jobs, and economic activities, he said.
The Speaker appealed to intended beneficiaries to take advantage of the projected new extension.
The House had approved the estate tax amnesty extension proposal by an overwhelming vote of 259 to none.
The law covered the estates of persons who died on or before December 31, 2017, with or without duly issued assessments, and whose estate taxes have remained unpaid or have accrued as of the same date.
The law offers those taking advantage of amnesty immunity from civil, criminal, and administrative cases and penalties under the 1997 Tax Code.
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted Congress to amend the law in June 2021 to provide for a two-year extension up to June 14, 2023, embodied in RA No. 11569.