CREATE bill likely to be approved mid-November, says Zubiri

The corporate income tax reform bill may not secure the approval of the Senate before Congress goes into recess this week, Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri said Thursday.

The Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) bill seeks to outrightly reduce the corporate income tax rate from the current 30% to 25% and lower it further to 20% on a staggered basis until 2027.

At the same time, it aims to rationalize tax incentives by making them time-bound, targeted, and performance-based.

"I have a funny feeling talagang hindi namin siguro matatapos ang CREATE ngayong araw na ito. Kahapon nga eh, nakita ninyo naman five hours [ang period of amendments] for five pages," Zubiri told reporters in an online interview.

"Eh 57 pages yata 'yung CREATE so aabutin tayo ng siyam-siyam nito. Feeling ko hindi pa siguro  tayo matatapos tonight. We're trying our best," he added.

Zubiri admitted that the rationalization of tax incentives is the contentious part of the bill.

During the period of debates, there were suggestions to split the bill into two —separating the corporate income tax reduction part from the rationalization of incentives.

Another suggestion is to defer the rationalization of tax perks.

Further, there is also a proposal to implement a "progressive" tax rate instead of a unitary one so that smaller businesses would not pay the same rate as that of the bigger firms.

All these suggestions have yet to be resolved in the ongoing period of amendments.

"It's going to be a very difficult night tonight in terms of amendments, debates. Magkakaroon ng botohan. I hope walang magkakaroon ng samaan ng loob but madugo pa itong CREATE na ito," Zubiri said.

The Senate plans to resume their session early on November 9 to take up both the national budget and the CREATE bill.

The CREATE bill, certified as urgent by Malacañang, would likely be approved on third reading by mid-November.  —KBK, GMA News