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Friday, March 29, 2024

Lower taxes on insurance pushed

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The Philippine Insurers and Reinsurers Association on Tuesday urged lawmakers to pass House Bill 3235, which aims to lower taxes on non-life insurance premium.

“We want to rush this because it is truly unfair and unjust for the non-life to shoulder these [highest] taxes,” said Insurance Commissioner Emmanuel Dooc in an insurance forum.

The government has imposed a 12 percent value added tax, 12.15 percent documentary stamp tax, 2 percent fire service tax and 0.5 percent to to 0.7 percent local government taxes on non-life insurance premium.

Allied Bankers Association president and PIRA Trustee Rebecca Dela Cruz said the 27.2 percent tax on non-life insurance premium in the Philippines was the highest among other Southeast Asian countries, like Singapore with only 7 percent, Thailand with 11.3 percent and Vietnam with 12 percent.

From the current 27.2 percent tax imposed on non-life insurances, the bill seeks to reduce level to a 5.5-percent low.

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PIRA chairman Michael Rellosa, who also attended the forum along with other insurance industry leaders, said more people could be protected with lower taxes.

The insurance industry is pushing HB 3235, or an act rationalizing the taxes imposed on non-life insurance policies, amending sections 108, 123, 184, and 185 of the national internal revenue code of 1997, authored by Davao City 1st District Rep. Karlo Alexei Norgales.

The bill aims to make non-life insurance affordable to entrepreneurs and ordinary Filipinos, relieve the government from the burden of rehabilitation, recovery, aid assistance, welfare costs whenever there are natural calamities, and make the Philippines more competitive with other Asean countries.

FPG Insurance chairman Ramon Dimacali added “government assets should be insured.”

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