Presidential bet Montemayor wants review of TRAIN, CREATE laws

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 6) — Presidential candidate Jose Montemayor Jr. said he plans to push for the review of two tax reform laws if given the opportunity, particularly to do away with increased excise taxes on petroleum products and to lower corporate income taxes.

Montemayor suggested there's a need to revisit the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law and the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) law, which are the first two packages of the Duterte administration's Comprehensive Tax Reform Program.

He cleared though that he generally agrees with the provisions of the TRAIN law, apart from the imposition of higher fuel excise taxes. The measure sought to raise more funds for big-ticket infrastructure and other government projects, which for Montemayor would only make the poor suffer.

"So, ang gagawin natin, temporarily we have to stop 'yung sa excise tax tsaka VAT (value-added tax) on oil [So, what we'll do is we'll temporarily have to stop the excise tax and the VAT on oil]," Montemayor said, while also taking note of the ongoing fuel price hikes.

"Pero 'yung other items sa [But the other items in the] TRAIN law, we have to retain," he added.

On CREATE, Montemayor expressed he doesn't agree that there should be tax cuts for businesses.

Proponents of the law said they expect it to generate more investments and jobs, but Montemayor argued reduced corporate income taxes could only result in hundreds of billions of lost revenue.

CREATE, signed by President Rodrigo Duterte last year, slashes corporate income tax from 30%, the highest in ASEAN, to 25% for large domestic and foreign firms that engage business in the country through a branch office.

For small and medium corporations, this will be reduced to 20% if they have net taxable income below ₱5 million and total assets below ₱100 million.