SPEAKER Martin Romualdez yesterday said at least one million Filipino families are expected to benefit from the new law extending the amnesty period for estate taxes until 2025.
Romualdez said concerned agencies supplied the number of potential beneficiaries during the House deliberations on the extension proposal as contained in House Bill (HB) No. 7909, of which he is a principal author.
Republic Act (RA) No. 11956 grants Filipinos an extension until June 14, 2025 to fulfill their estate tax obligations after the law expired last June 14. The measure lapsed into law on August 5.
Romualdez said the new extension would give beneficiaries enough time to avail of the amnesty and lower tax rates so they could settle their estate tax obligations and use the properties and other assets they have inherited from their departed loved ones.
He added that target beneficiaries include legal heirs and estate executors and administrators.
The Speaker said the payment of estate taxes would not only result in additional tax revenue for the government but also in the faster distribution and use of inherited properties like lands. He said the “sale and/or development of those properties would generate income, jobs and economic activities.”
The Speaker appealed to intended beneficiaries to take advantage of the new extension as he urged the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to simplify the amnesty application procedure and allow online filing, especially for heirs who are overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
He said the pandemic and the financial and economic difficulties it had caused made it hard for thousands of heirs, especially those in the provinces, to take advantage of the benefits the law, RA 11213, or the Tax Amnesty Act, enacted on February 14, 2019.
“They have already suffered enough because of the pandemic. Let us not make the situation more difficult for them by giving them more time to avail themselves of those benefits,” he said.
Under RA No. 11213, beneficiaries had until June 15, 2021 to apply for amnesty. The law covered the estates of persons who died on or before December 31, 2017, with or without duly issued assessments and whose estate taxes have remained unpaid or have accrued as of the same date.
The law offers those taking advantage of amnesty immunity from civil, criminal, and administrative cases and penalties under the 1997 Tax Code.
The pandemic prompted Congress to amend the law in June 2021 to provide for a two-year extension up to June 14, 2023, as provided for by RA No. 11569.
Albay Rep. Joey Salceda said the beneficiaries of the law include the 610,054 agrarian reform beneficiaries recently released from debt by the New Agrarian Emancipation Act.
“It has many improvements compared to the previous Estate Tax Amnesty, especially as it makes the administrative requirements for filing much easier to comply with,” he said. “The amnesty is also consistent with the full estate tax forgiveness envisioned under the New Agrarian Emancipation Act, which was PBBM’s most significant legislative accomplishment on his first year.”
