Lifting the secrecy provisions are “crucial and indispensable” to the proposed amnesty for tax delinquents and should also bring significant benefits to the national coffers.

Monetary and fiscal officials are working together to convince Congress to craft legislation allowing for a general tax amnesty and the lifting of the cloak of secrecy over bank deposits as tools against fraud and tax evasion.

This was learned from Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III who said Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)Governor Benjamin Diokno supports the lifting of secrecy provisions over bank deposits to help government resolve fraud cases.

Dominguez tasked Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran, chief economist and effective legislative liaison to ensure Congress understands the joint Department of Finance and BSP position.

“Make sure the general amnesty and the lifting of bank secrecy have to be together,” Dominguez stressed.

Lifting the secrecy provisions are “crucial and indispensable” to the proposed amnesty for tax delinquents and should also bring significant benefits to the national coffers, Dominguez said.

President Duterte, when he vetoed that portion of the Tax Amnesty Act of 2019 or Republic Act 11213, said a general tax amnesty without lifting bank secrecy provisions only promote tax evasion and result to revenue losses in government.

“Our experience with the 2006 tax amnesty under RA 9480 has shown that without safeguards and measures against tax evasion, the objectives of an amnesty such as raising revenues and expanding the tax base cannot be fully achieved,” Duterte said in his veto message.

Dominguez said should the President decide to support the amnesty program, the measure would generate estimated additional revenues totalingP6.8 billion, significantly lower than the earlier projected P13.6 billion.

Also, without the necessary safeguard provided by the proposed lifting of deposit secrecy provisions, revenue losses of some P53 billion were to result.

“(President Duterte) was constrained to veto the portion of the law covering the general amnesty because of the lack of provisions breaking the walls of bank secrecy, setting the framework for complying with international standards on exchange of information and other safeguards against those who abuse by declaring untruthful assets or net worth,” Dominguez said.

“Lifting bank secrecy and allowing the automatic exchange of information, however, would generate up to P76.6 billion in direct and indirect revenues in the next five years,” Dominguez said.

Duterte signed the Tax Amnesty Act into law in February this year but vetoed provisions granting amnesty to taxpayers who failed to settle their obligations in 2017 and earlier years.