OK of state tax amnesty extension hailed
A House leader has expressed elation on the swift approval on 2nd reading of estate tax amnesty extension principally pushed by Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez and Tingog Party-list Rep. Yedda Marie K. Romualdez, which will benefit almost 1 million families.
Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda, chairman of the House committee on ways and means, thanked his colleagues for their quick approval of House Bill (HB) No. 7909, which extends the Estate Tax Amnesty to June 14, 2025.
In his sponsorship remarks on the measure, Salceda explained that “The idea was to transfer estates more efficiently and more expeditiously, so that their value can be unlocked for better economic use. As blunt as this sounds, the dead cannot use or optimize assets. That task falls solely on the living.”
The measure extends the tax amnesty first enacted under RA 11213 and later extended by RA 11569 to June 14, 2025, and expands the coverage of amnesty-eligible estates to those whose decedents died on December 31, 2021, from the current December 31, 2017 coverage.
“Economic recovery – especially expanding productivity – remains this Congress’s top priority. Productivity, of course, depends on capital assets – especially land. The more easily assets can be passed on to their productive users, the better it will be for the economy as a whole,” Salceda said.
“As many of you know, unsettled estates can leave land and other assets idle and unused for years if not decades. That is why, when the Estate Tax Amnesty was first enacted and then extended, some 133,860 individuals availed of the program from 2019 to 2023, bringing about Php7.4 billion in collection.”
Salceda also cited the difficulty of settling estates, as families tend to prioritize the expenses of funeral services and unpaid medical bills upon the death of a family member.
“The other idea underlying an estate tax amnesty is that most estates are in assets that are not liquid. Heirs have to come up with cash that they may not necessarily have, or part with some portion of the estate of the deceased,” he said.
“This is especially difficult given the fact that you have to settle an estate right after losing a loved one. And, if it takes them too long, they incur additional penalties, making it very difficult to actually settle estate tax obligations. That is the point of the 6% unitary rate without penalties or surcharges,” he said.
“RA No. 11213 was passed to provide taxpayers immunity from the payment of estate taxes until June 15, 2021. However, the pandemic hampered the settlement of estates. To give people more time to settle estates, we extended the estate tax amnesty from June 15, 2021, to June 14, 2023, by enacting RA No. 11569 last Congress. We also streamlined the procedure by removing the requirement of proof of settlement in the payment of the estate tax under the same law,” Salceda explained.
The House tax chair emphasized however that almost a million families still have unsettled estates that could benefit from the measure.
“Now the deadline is about to come—June 14, 2023. But hundreds of thousands of families – I estimate as much as 920,000 Filipino families, still have pending estates to settle,” he said.
