May 15th, 2023
House Ways and Means Chair Joey Sarte Salceda (Albay, 2nd district) on Monday urged his Senate counterparts to “pass the Estate Tax Amnesty extension over the next few session days, before the window closes,” as the legislation expires June 14 this year, while Congress goes on sine die adjournment on June 2.
“I urge the Senate, for this and in general, try to match the speed with which the House disposes of urgent measures. For estate tax amnesty extension, it’s a yes or no question. Not much need for debate here. It’s simply to extend or not to extend,” Salceda said.
Salceda, a sponsor of House Bill No. 7909, which the House leadership principally authored, says that the bill will benefit some 920,000 families which, “whether they have a legal instrument or not, have some form of property from their decedent to distribute.”
“Based on our simulations, almost a million Filipino families have estates to settle. That is despite the first Estate Tax Amnesty and its subsequent extension by two years.”
Salceda’s proposal, which the House approved without negative votes today, extends the Estate Tax Amnesty by another two years, up to June 14, 2025.
The estate amnesty tax rate is 6 percent, imposed on the decedent’s total net taxable estate at the time of death without penalties at every stage of transfer of property. The proposal also extends deaths covered to December 2021.
Salceda says that the measure “also complements the estate tax writeoff we have already given to agrarian reform beneficiaries, which is also until 2025, and which should be released in the Official Gazette as law any time soon.” Salceda referred to the New Agrarian Emancipation Act, or House Bill 6336, which has been approved by both Houses and should have lapsed into law by now.
“If the Senate doesn’t do this over the next few days, the amnesty will expire while we are not in session. There will be a window of time, meanwhile, when people are uncertain about what to do next with their estates,
Salceda also recommended that President Marcos “issue a certification of urgency, which I am certain the Speaker is also seeking from PBBM. That gives the Senate the signal to do floor deliberations in one day.”
“The majority, on both houses, exists for a reason. We exist because the people want us to get things done fast. This is a yes-or-no question with a clear deadline, and with clear consequences if we miss the deadline.”