Delinquent estate taxpayers have a reason to celebrate following the third reading approval of a bill granting amnesty for unpaid estate taxes and another bill simplifying the estate tax rate.
The House of Representatives on Monday approved on final reading House Bill 4814 granting amnesty in the payment of estate tax, and House Bill 4815 simplifying the estate tax rate, amending for this purpose the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997.
HB 4814 got 216 votes for its approval, while HB 4815 garnered 219 votes. The two bills got zero abstentions and zero votes against the measure.
Deputy Speaker and Marikina Rep. Romero Quimbo, a principal author of the amnesty tax bill, earlier said the measure seeks to settle unpaid estates tax and thus free up properties of unsettled estates, in order to increase tax collections.
The bill will waive all penalties on unpaid estate taxes and instead impose a unitary tax rate of six percent.
The bill also gives the amnesty beneficiaries immunity from civil, criminal or administrative penalties.
The bill also gives the following privileges to taxpayers who will avail the amnesty – estate tax amnesty returns for 2016 and prior years will not be admissible as evidence in judicial, quasi-judicial, or administrative proceedings; books of accounts and other records of the taxpayers for the years covered by the amnesty will not be examined.
Meanwhile, House Bill 4815 seeks to reduce the existing estate tax rates.
The bill seeks to amend the National Internal Revenue Code by imposing a unitary tax rate of six percent of the value of the net estate.
The National Internal Revenue Code of 1997 currently exempts from tax a net estate of up to P200,000, and levies five percent, eight percent, 11 percent, 15 percent, and 20 percent according to the bracket the property belongs.
The unitary estate tax by amending the National Internal Revenue Code is part of the Department of Finance tax reform package proposal.
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