Senate leaders, insisting on retaining adequate safeguards, are not rushing to heed the call of Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III for Congress to amend deposit-secrecy restrictions as precondition to an amnesty program for delinquent taxpayers.
The chairman of the Senate Banks Committee, however, is receptive to Dominguez’s pitch, as he had always supported amending the law.
“I do not mind relaxing the bank-secrecy law, but there must be safeguards on possible government abuse of information and political persecution,” Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph G. Recto told the BusinessMirror.
Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, however, indicated the senators will not readily adopt the Department of Finance (DOF) chief’s proposal.
“We will study the pros and cons first,” Sotto said, as the enabling legislation required to carry out Dominguez’s plan still has to undergo review in committee hearings.
This developed even as Sen. Francis G. Escudero signaled that the finance secretary’s suggestion to amend the bank-secrecy law was not likely to encounter difficulty in getting the endorsement of the Senate Committee on Banks and Financial Institutions.
“I have always been in favor of repealing the bank-secrecy law even before Secretary Dominguez’s call,” said Escudero, who chairs the committee.
The Senate and the House of Representatives are expected to tackle the DOF proposal when Congress reconvenes regular sessions next week (May 2), after an extended Holy Week recess.
Under Republic Act [RA] 1405, also known as the bank-deposit secrecy law, bank deposits and all related transactions are absolutely confidential and may not be looked into by “any parson, government official, bureau or office”.
RA 1405 also imposes criminal sanctions for any violation of the law, the authorities warned.
On Monday Dominguez ruled out a tax-amnesty program in the mold successfully pursued by Indonesia that resulted in the identification of taxable assets that authorities said would help underwrite that nation’s capacity-buildup program.
Dominguez said an amnesty program pursued independent of parallel changes to existing deposit secrecy provisions was nothing more than a joke unworthy of serious consideration.
1 comment
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What is funnier is that the bank secrecy is already repealed by the repeal provision of the central bank law.
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What needs revision or outright repeal are the laws granting fcdu or dollar accounts both secrecy and total tax exempt status.
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tsk!
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