The passing of the Philippine Renewable Energy (RE) bill at the Senate has hit a snag with Senator Joker Arroyo questioning the tax perks of the bill.
According to Senator Chiz Escudero:
The renewable energy bill will not be passed until such time we have made our recommendation on the exemption process found in the bill, because of the concern raised by Sen. Joker Arroyo on revenue loss or erosion of tax base in line with the exemptions proposed
Despite that development, they are still confident that it will be approved by October. The bill seeks to give incentives to operators who will put up powerplants running on renewable energy. The RE Bill was filed as Senate Bill No. 2046 (Renewable Energy Act Of 2008) by senators Jinggoy, Ramon A. Revilla Jr., Miriam Defensor Santiago, Juan Miguel F. Zubiri, Loren B. Legarda, Richard J. Gordon, Pia S. Cayetano, and Manuel M. Lapid.
The RE Bill in Congress (House Bill 4193) provides the following tax incentives:
- Tax and duty-free importation of machinery
- Tax credit on capital components and parts bought locally
- Tax holiday of six years, net operating loss carryover for the first three years of operations
- Accelerated depreciation
- Zero value-added tax rating
I hope they don’t scrap the Zero value-added tax rating part in the Senate version because that could spell a huge difference in energy savings for the public. Current fossil fuel based energy fed into the grid is slapped with a Value Added Tax that adds heavily to the cost of one’s electric bill.
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Category: Law, Clean Energy
