2nd tax reform package to be submitted in October

The Department of Finance (DOF) plans to submit the second package of the Duterte administration's comprehensive tax reform program for congressional scrutiny in October.

"The House will finish the budget hearings around October, so we'll just wait for them to be free ... Then we will file the second package," Finance Undersecretary Karl Chua told reporters on the sidelines of Senate ways and means committee hearing on the first package of the tax reform initiative.

The second package will seek to reduce the corporate income tax rate to 25 percent from 30 percent, and rationalize fiscal incentives to plug revenue leakages.

"We're still finalizing it ... The second package should at least be revenue neutral," Chua said, noting that the second package will not be a revenue-compensating measure.

"Ganito lang naman 'yan: If the incentives cannot be narrowed, then the reduction of the rate will have been waived," he said.

The first package of the comprehensive tax reform program – passed in the lower chamber and currently undergoing Senate scrutiny – seeks to reduce the personal income tax rate and increase the excise tax on petroleum and automobile, expand the value-added tax base, and tax sugar sweetened beverages as compensating measures.

Chua said the DOF wants the first package signed by the President on January 1, 2018. "So all of you will benefit," he added. — VDs, GMA News