PEZA welcomes signing of CREATE into law 

PEZA welcomes signing of CREATE into law 

07 April 2021 (Wednesday)
 

Pasay City – The Philippine Economic Zone Authority has welcomed the signing of a new law Republic Act. No. 11534, or the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Act, by President Rodrigo Duterte last March 26, 2021.

The CREATE Law aims to gradually lower the corporate income tax from 30% to 25% and streamline the government’s fiscal incentives for investments both covering foreign and domestic enterprises.

PEZA Director General Charito “Ching” Plaza has expressed gratitude to the President and the Congress for considering most of the concerns and suggestions from the industry associations and PEZA-registered export industries that had been expressed and submitted to the House of Representatives and the Senate since the deliberations began as TRAIN 2, to CITIRA, and now the CREATE Law.

“We are happy with the final CREATE Act after all those years of struggle. We recognize the need to gradually change and reform national tax or revenue system yet at the same time address the need to maintain and attract investors’ confidence in the Philippines, especially during this time of pandemic,” said Plaza.

The PEZA Chief added, “Although CREATE may offer 'win some, lose some' opportunities for the different industries, we are glad that CREATE sustained our argument and has placed a high premium on export-oriented enterprises with their availment of superior fiscal incentives particularly for new projects that will be applied with the IPAs like PEZA.”

“Now that the passage of CREATE law is done, it creates stability in taxation regime and PEZA as the top export-oriented investment promotion agency can aggressively pursue marketing and promotion of our economic zones to global investors,” she added.

The PEZA Chief said that there’s a need to communicate to existing and new investors the impact of the CREATE law to export-oriented industries while pushing the momentum and efforts to attract investments through marketing and promotion activities.

Extension of availment of incentives for existing RBEs

One of the items vetoed by the President which may have a big effect to the country’s existing foreign direct investors is the removal of the extension of availment of tax incentives by existing registered business enterprises (RBEs) given that the "extension of incentives for existing projects is unfair to ordinary taxpayers / unincentivized enterprises and further, only new activities and projects deserve fresh incentives."

Under CREATE, RBEs have no choice but to make do with the 10-year sunset period (after the lapse of ITH) and thereafter, graduate to the regular 25% CIT rate.

As explained by Deputy Director General for Policy and Planning Mr. Tereso Panga, “This scenario could be a make or break for the Philippines as the affected ecozone locators, for example, might decide to retain their facilities and invest in new projects to be entitled to a longer ITH and SCIT period (total of 14- 17 years) or worse, they might just pack up and transfer to a more willing host-country that can offer better incentives for their investments as their availment of more advantageous incentives for sunk projects with the IPAs prior to CREATE were cut short by the mandatory sunset period for RBEs.”

Nevertheless, Plaza remains hopeful that the locator companies will be able to cope with the new conditions and the Philippine economy will be able to bounce back with a much inclusive growth for the country.

“We believe that effective governance will be pivotal in our resolve to retain, expand and attract investments into the ecozones under the CREATE regime and in due time, our existing locators will be able to adjust to CREATE and continue to secure their investments in the Philippines,” she said.

PEZA is currently preparing its inputs to the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the RA 11534 and will soon conduct series of dialogue with its locator companies to further discuss the impact or benefits of the CREATE Law to PEZA and its registered enterprises.