Governments largely craft major economic stimulus legislation from the top, the now mainstream trickle-down approach. The Philippine government’s efforts largely hew to this economic orthodoxy. The current, pandemic-era Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (Create) bill, the major economic reform legislation of the Duterte administration, has for its main feature a corporate income tax cut, a gradual, yearly reduction that would eventually cap the CIT at 20 percent.
The compelling argument offered by the proponents, from the economic managers to the ardent backers in both chambers of Congress, is a line that you can lift, verbatim, from the playbook of governments from across the globe, especially governments led by economic conservatives (Republicans if it were the US). Tax cuts for the rich, those with awesome investing power, are automatically plowed back into investments, thus creating job-generating economic opportunities. That is the general thesis of empowering the already rich. Because the rich possess most things they want (from yachts to luxury jets to rare artwork), where else will they direct the proceeds of their tax cuts but toward investments? When you empower business, you automatically empower the broader society.
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