Senate needs to act in country’s interest with Create bill

IT is long past time that the Senate act in the best interest of the Philippines, rather than big business, and finish its work to pass the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act (Create).

The Create bill is the third version of the second package of the government’s Comprehensive Tax Reform Program, addressing corporate income taxes and fiscal incentives to investors, and has been stalled in the Senate for the same reason its two earlier iterations (known as the Trabaho and Citira bills, respectively) failed to make it to President Rodrigo Duterte’s desk: a willingness by the Senate to overlook the forest for the trees, so to speak, and bend to scare tactics from some big business interests over the perceived loss of tax breaks and other investment incentives.