Lawmaker bats for abolition of estate tax

A CONGRESSMAN on Tuesday filed a bill seeking to abolish estate taxes, in a move aimed at scrapping levies on inherited property to ease the use of idle lands.

House Bill No. 6553 seeks to abolish the 6% estate tax on the net estate of deceased individuals, removing levies on property inherited by family members, opting instead for taxation if the property is sold. A copy of the bill was not made immediately available.

“When a loved one dies, do you really have time to deal with estate matters?” Albay Rep. Adrian E. Salceda, who authored the bill, said in a statement. “Families are grieving. They need space to recover, not pressure to produce cash for a tax that arises only because someone passed away.”

He said collections from estate taxes amount to P14 billion annually, far less than the P78 billion in economic effects from delayed estate transfers that his team calculated.

“The damage it causes is greater,” said Mr. Salceda in Filipino. “Land titles cannot be transferred immediately. Properties are left idle. Banks cannot extend loans because the documents are not in order.” — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio