Recto asks Senate to prioritize extension of estate tax amnesty 

A leader of the House of Representatives on Sunday appealed to his former colleagues in the “smaller House” or the Senate to pass the bill extending the estate tax amnesty period for two years, according to a report by BusinessMirror.

Former senator and now House Deputy Speaker Ralph G. Recto believes his “former classmates can pass what is a simple bill” without having to wait for President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to certify the measure as urgent.

When it resumes session on Monday, both chambers of Congress have 12 session days before it adjourns anew by the end of the month.

Under the estate tax amnesty law, the period to avail of the benefits expires on June 14; “which means the clock is ticking,” Recto said.

The lawmaker, nonetheless, expressed hope of an extension “because in legislation, a month is an eternity: We can pass it.”

Although tax bills originate from the House, the Senate, in anticipation of House action, can start tackling the bill, so that when the House bill arrives, the Senate version is primed for floor debates.

The bill moving the deadline of the estate tax amnesty to June 14, 2025, has hurdled the House Ways and Means Committee.

This paves the way for plenary debates, “whose outcome, its passage, is a certainty,” Recto said.

Improved version

WHILE in the Senate, Recto was among the authors of Republic Act (RA) 11213, a law that erased the penalties and significantly cut the rates for meeting estate tax obligations.

However, the period to avail of the one-time tax relief coincided with the pandemic, prompting Congress to pass what would become RA 11569 which extended the amnesty period by two years, to June 14, 2023.

By extending the window of opportunity again by two years, “families will save billions while government will earn billions”

The extension is a “lifeline to a government scrounging for revenues and an act of kindness” to seniors whose vulnerability during the 30 months the pandemic raged prevented them from availing of the amnesty.

“Putting a deceased loved one’s properties in order was also a casualty of Covid,” Recto said.

The senator hailed the House bill as an improved version of the estate tax amnesty law as it covers deaths which occurred on or before December 31, 2021, amending the cut off period of December 31, 2017, in RA 11213.

Unlock potentials

AS society opens and restrictions are lifted, people are now free to move around in completing the complex legal requirements in putting a deceased loved one’s estate in order, according to Recto.

The senator emphasized the bill must be passed for people to unlock the potential of idle assets left by the deceased so these can be used for productive purposes by the heirs.

Recto said if government had extended “lifelines, bailouts in the billions” to distressed commercial firms during the pandemic, “then why should not the same compassion be extended to families, moreso that it won’t cost the government anything?”

Last week, the House Committee on Ways and Means approved an unnumbered substitute bill extending the period of availment of estate tax amnesty by two years as it postponed the deadline of application from June 14, 2023, and reset it to June 14, 2025, amending Section 6 of RA 11213.

The bill covers estate of decedent/s who died on or before December 31, 2017, with or without assessment duly issued therefore, whose estate tax/es have remained unpaid or have accrued as of December 31, 2017.