PASSAGE OF CREATE TO HASTEN COUNTRY’S ECONOMIC RECOVERY – NEDA
The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) lauds the passage of Senate Bill 1357 or the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Act on second and third reading yesterday.
“CREATE will help small and medium enterprises become more competitive and productive to support the recovery of our economy,” said Acting Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick T. Chua.
“We thank the Senate, through the leadership of Senate President Vicente Sotto III, Majority Floor Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, and Ways and Means Chairperson Pia Cayetano, for shepherding passage of this landmark reform,” added the NEDA chief.
The CREATE Act, once signed into law, will contribute to the government’s economic recovery program, which includes Bayanihan I and II and the Financial Institutions Strategic Transfer (FIST) Act. CREATE seeks to help businesses recover from the impact of COVID-19. It will benefit micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that comprise 99 percent of enterprises and employ over 60 percent of Filipino workers.
The Senate version of CREATE provides an outright 10 percentage point cut in the country’s corporate income tax (CIT) rate, lowering it from 30 percent to 20 percent for domestic businesses with net taxable income equivalent to 5 million pesos and below, and with total assets (excluding land) not exceeding 100 million pesos. Other corporations will benefit from a lower CIT rate of 25 percent, down from 30 percent.
The measure also modernizes fiscal incentives by making them performance-based, targeted, time-bound, and transparent.
“With CREATE, the country will also be able to attract more foreign direct investment with an improved incentives menu, which will maximize desirable economic outcomes such as job creation, domestic value-added, and technology transfer,” Chua added.
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