Tax incentive a good start for low-cost housing development

THE Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) recently reached an agreement with the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) and the National Housing Authority (NHA) to facilitate tax incentives for developers of socialized housing projects. This is a good first step toward encouraging the Philippines’ energetic real estate and construction industries to do their part in helping to relieve the country’s massive housing shortage.

The particulars of the agreement are that the BIR will streamline the processing of certificates of tax exemption for raw land transferred to the NHA for socialized housing projects. The NHA, in turn, will screen and endorse developers eligible for the tax exemption for the housing projects to the BIR, while the HUDCC will maintain a master list of exemption-eligible projects.