Pasay City – With Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) bill now pending in the Office of the President for the signature of President Duterte, the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) Chief has recently expressed support for the passage of CREATE bill into law and satisfaction to the version approved by the bicameral conference of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The CREATE bill seeks 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 thanked 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 then the present CREATE bill.
“We are now happy of the final CREATE bill after all those years of struggle. We recognize the need to change our national tax system, particularly the reduction of the corporate income tax especially during this time. We have seen the impact of the pandemic to our economy,” said Plaza.
Salient points
During her interview at ANC on Wednesday, Plaza noted that one of the salient points of the CREATE bill is the longer sunset period for the existing enterprises. “Once the transition period will end, our investors will have the option to reapply if they want to apply for the 5% GIE or the CIT regime,” she said.
Further, the PEZA Chief cited the President’s power to grant longer ITH especially for strategic and big ticket projects that will be located in the countryside. “This will develop our countryside and achieve a much inclusive growth for the country,” stated Plaza.
“CREATE, just like other laws, isn’t perfect, but we can correct and enhance the implementation in its implementing rules and regulations. We are sure that PEZA and the other IPAs will also be on board,” she said.
“With the beautiful CREATE law, PEZA hopes to attract more foreign direct investments to the Philippines especially to the countryside,” noted the Director General.
Moving forward with passage of CREATE
According to Plaza, “Our investors have spent years with a wait-and-see attitude with their application for new and expansion projects due to the uncertainties brought about by this reform.”
“The approval of a better CREATE into law will aggressively pursue marketing and promotion of our economic zones to global investors. PEZA can now aggressively pursue our investments marketing and promotion activities and will, in turn, achieve our goal of fully industrializing the Philippines,” noted the PEZA Chief.
“PEZA has done its best to assist our locator companies who have kept afloat the economy during these trying times but CREATE will do more for them to really bounce back from this pandemic,” she added.
The PEZA Chief assured support to the government’s efforts in reforming the tax system of the country with the goal of enhancing the competitiveness of the country and making the Philippines an investment haven in Asia.
“We are very cooperative in looking ways on how to keep our existing investors with us and help them expand their operations and even attract new investors to come to our country,” underlined Plaza.
On February 03, the Senate and the House of Representatives have ratified the bicameral report on the CREATE Bill where they reconciled the disagreeing provisions of Senate Bill No. 1357 and House Bill No. 4157. The final version now awaits the signature of President Rodrigo Duterte, which will signify its passage into law. #