Senate to pass 2 economic stimulus bills, too

Aside from the timely passage of the government’s spending program before the end of the fiscal year, the Senate leadership is also targeting the passage of two economic stimulus bills that would lower corporate taxes, reform fiscal incentives and help banks deal with bad debts.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III said the Senate was looking at the proposed Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives Reform Act (CREATE), which would reform corporate income taxes and incentives, and the Financial Institutions Strategic Transfer or FIST bill, which would help banks offload debts and manage nonperforming assets.

Sotto, along with Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto and the Senate finance chair, Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, met with Speaker Lord Allan Velasco and House Majority Leader Martin Romualdez on Wednesday to talk about their legislative priorities.

“We discussed the possible priority measures we can pass within the year and in the first six months of 2021,” Sotto said in a Viber message.

The Senate will reopen its session next week and start plenary debates on the 2021 budget bill, which was approved by the House of Representatives on Oct. 16.

Once it’s passed on third reading in the Senate, the two chambers will meet in conference to reconcile differences. The target is to have the General Appropriations Act of 2021 signed before the next Congress break on Dec. 19.

While the spending bill is undergoing the process, Sotto said the Senate would try to deliberate on the the CREATE and FIST bills in the interim.

“There are lulls while budget [bicameral conference] is ongoing, we might be able to get it through [by the end of 2021],” he said.

CREATE, formerly called the Corporate Income Tax and Incentives Reform Act, will immediately lower corporate income taxes from 30 percent to 25 percent until the rate is down to 20 percent.

The proposed FIST law seeks to help financial institutions in the resolution and management of their bad debts and nonperforming assets.