MANILA — Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has ordered a study on ways to actively engage lawmakers of the incoming Congress to speed up the approval of the rest of the Duterte administration’s tax reform packages, as well as to apprise them of the untenability and adverse financial repercussions of certain legislative proposals, the Department of Finance (DOF) said in a statement on Wednesday.
In a recent DOF executive committee (Execom) meeting, Dominguez also listed the Department’s priorities when a new set of lawmakers assumes office in the 18th Congress, which opens on July 22.
These legislative priorities, he said, include increasing tax collections by, among others, collecting the right amount of taxes from Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) and their foreign employees; ensuring that the Bureau of the Treasury is functioning well; privatizing idle state assets; collecting unpaid obligations due the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM); and further increasing the dividend contributions of government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs).
Dominguez also instructed DOF officials to accelerate the full implementation of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA) and the fuel marking program, and to assist in the proper implementation of the rice tariffication law.
“We have to improve our engagement with the legislature, and we have to get it more organized. We have to get our tax reform packages passed by the end of this year,” Dominguez said during the Execom meeting.
The rest of the tax reform packages include Package 2, which aims to lower the corporate income tax (CIT) and modernize the fiscal incentives regime; Package 3, which institutes reforms in the property valuation system; and Package 4, which rationalizes capital income taxation.
Increasing the excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol products is among the components of Package 2 Plus, which was approved recently by the outgoing Congress. The other component is the bill that seeks to increase the government’s share from mining operations.
Dominguez said finance officials should also fully explain to legislators why some bills, particularly those that aim to grant tax exemptions and other perks would prove to be ill-advised and fiscally unwise in the long run.
He also directed officials to study the feasibility of liberalizing imports of certain agricultural products such as sugar; the government’s plan to buy the stake of the Philippine Stock Exchange in the Philippine Dealing System Holdings Corporation; the privatization of the United Coconut Planters Bank; strengthening disaster-risk financing programs to help communities become climate-resilient; the future of the Al-Amanah Bank under a new Bangsamoro Region; and the transfer of the Credit Information Corp. to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
Finance Undersecretary and Chief Economist Gil Beltran also cited the Warehouse Receipts Bill as another priority measure to help expand the access of farmers to credit and improve the ease of doing business in the rural sector, while Assistant Secretary Antonio Lambino II mentioned the completion and full implementation of the National Single Window to facilitate trading and speed up the processing of regulatory requirements here and with the country’s neighbors in the region.
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