MANILA – Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo allayed fears that the proposed second package of the comprehensive tax reform program might scare away investors, saying that infrastructure and the ease of doing business are the most important factors for business ventures.
In a statement, Arroyo said that while incentives may attract investors, they cater only to so-called footloose businesses and that infrastructure and ease of doing business are the factors that attract investors to a particular country.
The Speaker made the statement amid concerns raised that the proposed Tax Reform for Attracting Better and High-quality Opportunities (TRABAHO) bill may turn off investors as it takes some of the incentives currently given to existing enterprises especially those operating in free ports and economic zones.
Arroyo, together with House committee on ways and means chairman representative Dakila Karlo Cua, representative Jose Antonio Garcia, and Finance undersecretary Karl Kendrick Chua, held a consultative meeting last week with locators at the Freeport Area of Bataan to issue some clarifications on the proposed measure and address their concerns.
“The government realizes that there are businesses that need fiscal incentives and there are industries that invest not really because of incentives but because of infrastructure and the ease of doing business,” she said.
The House Speaker also said she will push for the passage of the TRABAHO bill once session resumes since it is one of the priority measures of President Rodrigo Duterte.
“The tax reform, the rationalization of the fiscal incentives that’s why I want to show here that it is not the most important thing. Infrastructure and the ease of doing business are the most important things but anyway, it will begin the period of interpellation also when we resume,” Arroyo said. (GMA News)
