House panel set to approve bill lowering income tax rates

A LAWMAKER on Tuesday said the House committee on ways and means is set to approve a bill that seeks to lower income tax rates in the Philippines.

Marikina Rep. and committee chairman Romero Federico “Miro” Quimbo said in a press briefing that the house panel would approve next week the bill created by the technical working group.

Quimbo said the new bill would have four brackets, which mean that workers earning less than P180,000 a year would  be exempted from paying income taxes while workers who earn P180,000 to P500,000 would pay a tax rate of nine percent.

He added that those who earn between P500,001 to P10 million a year would have a tax rate of 17 percent while those with more than P10 million of earnings would pay a 30-percent income tax.

The lawmaker said that corporate taxes would be reduced to 25 percent.

If passed into law, he said the government would lose at least P30 billion during its first year of implementation but was quick to say that an increase in tax collection would be seen due to higher compliance rate among individuals and corporations.

He said that this would be possible because “the simpler the computation, the easier for compliance.”