{"id":238156,"date":"2019-11-22T21:54:03","date_gmt":"2019-11-23T02:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=238156"},"modified":"2019-11-22T21:54:03","modified_gmt":"2019-11-23T02:54:03","slug":"foreign-investors-push-for-immediate-passage-of-citira-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/11\/22\/foreign-investors-push-for-immediate-passage-of-citira-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreign investors push for immediate passage of CITIRA bill"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) president, Nabil Francis, said the proposed Comprehensive Income Tax and Incentives Rationalization Act (CITIRA) should be \u201cpassed quickly.\u201d (PNA file photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA\u00a0<\/strong>—\u00a0Foreign business groups expect reduced corporate tax rates to attract more investments to the Philippines, as they support the immediate passage of legislation reducing such tax and rationalizing tax incentives.<\/p>\n

European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) president, Nabil Francis, said the proposed Comprehensive Income Tax and Incentives Rationalization Act (CITIRA) should be \u201cpassed quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in support of those key reforms agenda of the government. What is important is to fast-track because we are moving well (with) so-called competitors, the neighboring countries are ready. And they are moving very quickly. We would like the Philippines to become the future magnet for foreign investments,\u201d Francis said in a press briefing Thursday on the sidelines the Arangkada Philippines Forum 2019.<\/p>\n

The second package of the comprehensive tax reform program, CITIRA reduces corporate income tax from 30 percent to 20 percent over 10 years.<\/p>\n

Francis said the chamber\u2019s members intend to determine the future fiscal regime of the Philippines with the passage of the legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the (pending) CITIRA bill, we have a bit of uncertainty. In general, investors, they don\u2019t like uncertainty,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n

The ECCP has more than 700 members, 60 percent of them are European companies that have invested in the Philippines.<\/p>\n

Julian Payne, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, considered the tax bill as \u201cvery comprehensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe strongly support reduction of it to 20 percent, which is the Asean average, (but the) real question now is how quickly it happens,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

However, Payne said rationalizing incentives should take into account the incentive regime of Asean neighbors, particularly Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.<\/p>\n

Celeste Ilagan, director of the Philippine Association of Multinational Companies Regional Headquarters, Inc., shared the view that the rate of corporate income tax reduction in the country is slow.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut definitely, we support the reduction of corporate income tax,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Apart from the passage of the CITIRA, Francis said the government\u2019s \u201cBuild, Build, Build\u201d infrastructure program will also be key in attracting more foreign investors to the Philippines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0—\u00a0Foreign business groups expect reduced corporate tax rates to attract more investments to the Philippines, as they support the immediate …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":238157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","mauthors-leslie-gatpolintan","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238158,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238156\/revisions\/238158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}