Proposal: Additional incentives for preferred investment areas

THE CITY government is looking at providing additional tax incentives of up to five years for investors willing to put their capital in its preferred investment areas.

Preferred investment areas in the city are those to be announced by Mayor Sara Duterte through an executive order.

This was one of the provisions being pushed at the committee on Trade, Commerce, and Industry, which filed amendments to the city’s Investment Code during Tuesday’s regular session.

Section 33 of the draft amendment pushes for fiscal incentives, such as business tax exemptions beginning on the start of commercial operations.

Other incentives include exemptions from basic real property taxes of real properties used in the registered business, excluding barangay shares, for a period of a maximum of five years from the effectivity or accrual of the real property tax on the new tax declaration/assessment issued by the City Assessor’s Office.

Tax credits will also be offered to new investors for up to five years, while the city is also willing to reduce taxes for certain costs, depending on the stipulations of the implementing rules and regulations of the new amended Code.

The city is also pushing to give certain fiscal incentives for registered enterprises employing indigenous peoples and persons with disabilities, with registered enterprises allowed to deduct from its gross income for the wages paid to IPs and PWDs.

The item was passed last Tuesday on first reading at the Sangguniang Panlungsod.

Councilor Nilo Abellera, trade committee chair, pushed for the measure.