DOF expects Congress to pass untackled provisions of TRAIN law in Q3

The Department of Finance (DOF) expects Congress to approve certain provisions of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) in the third quarter of the year.

These provisions were not included in the TRAIN Act’s current version, which President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law last December.

“Kaya ‘yan in the coming months. Kaya siguro ... We will try,” Finance Undersecretary Karl Kendrick Chua told GMA News Online on the sidelines of a press conference in Manila City on Wednesday.

Certain reforms were not included in the TRAIN Act, such as the tax amnesty program, adjustments in the Motor Vehicle Users Charge, and amendments to the Bank Secrecy law.

These were in the original first package of tax reforms proposed by the administration, but did not reach the final version signed into law by the President.

The proposed reforms, now called Package 1B by the DOF, are expected to generate as much as P40 billion in additional revenues.

“Part B will raise about P38 or P40 billion,” Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said in December 2017, expecting back then that the package would be passed in the first quarter of 2018.

“We expect to raise money from the amnesty. Then there will be vehicle users’ charge ... allowing bank secrecy laws to be suspended in cases of fraud, tax evasion,” Dominguez said.

The DOF has submitted TRAIN 2 in January, seeking to lower the corporate income tax rates and rationalize fiscal incentives. —VDS, GMA News