Economic reforms 85% complete—Dominguez

The Department of Finance (DOF) said President Duterte has now accomplished eight tenths of his economic reform program that provided income tax cuts for individuals and corporations.

In a statement, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said Wednesday, July 28, that 85 percent of the Duterte administration’s comprehensive tax reform program (CTRP) and other economic reform measures are now in place.

According to Dominguez, the completed economic reforms of the President have unleashed their full potential and raised funds for the government’s ambitious infrastructure program.

“If you look at the presidency of President Duterte, I think as a whole he has been quite successful. And in the economic side… I think we have achieved maybe 85 percent of what we set out to do,” Dominguez said.

As head of the government’s economic team, Dominguez led efforts in getting the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law and, later, the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Act passed in Congress.

TRAIN (Package 1 of the CTRP) provided substantial personal income tax (PIT) cuts for 99 percent of the country’s wage earners after two decades of non-adjustment of the rates.

Meanwhile, CREATE (Package 2) reduced the corporate income tax (CIT) rate from 30 percent to 20 percent for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and to 25 percent for all other businesses.

CREATE, which introduced significant improvements in the grant of tax incentives by making it more accountable and transparent, was passed decades after versions of the reform were introduced in the legislature during previous administrations.

Meanwhile, Package 1-B, enacted as the Tax Amnesty Act, lets errant taxpayers affordably settle their outstanding tax liabilities, allowing for a “fresh start,” while also providing the government with additional revenues for its priority infrastructure and social programs.

Reforms that aimed to raise taxes on “sin” products such as tobacco, e-cigarettes, and alcohol were enacted under the Duterte administration through the passage of TRAIN followed by two more sin tax laws in 2019 and 2020.

Dominguez said tax reform is a major component of President Duterte’s goal of reducing poverty, which his administration has kept on track as shown by the reduction in poverty incidence to 16.7 percent in 2018, from 23.3 percent in 2015, until the COVID-19 pandemic last year disrupted the growth of economies across the globe.