Estate tax amnesty bill seen OK’d before July; EOPT Act ratified on day of SONA

By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz @joveemarie

HOUSE Ways and Means

Chairman Jose Ma. Clem- ente “Joey” S. Salceda (Albay, 2nd district) says he expects that Congress will ratify the estate tax amnesty extension measure before Congress adjourns sine die on June 3, now that “the Senate will move for bicameral conference [bicam] next week.”

“We are already discussing at least the outline of [bicam] proceedings. The Senate has introduced some new provisions to the House version,” Salceda said. “So we will see whether we can adopt these provisions or whether a [bicam] committee is necessary.”

The lawmaker added that “so far, the provisions introduced in the Senate version do not appear to be averse to the point of the Estate Tax Amnesty extension.”

“They want some mechanism for electronic filing. That’s acceptable— even welcome,” Salceda said. “As long as we see third-reading approval by the Senate on May 29 or before that, we will be able to send this to [President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.] for his signature; and he can announce this as another win during [his] SONA [State of the Nation Address].”

EOPT enactment

SALCEDA also said there is a possibility that the proposed Ease of Paying Taxes (EOPT) Act could be enacted or ratified before the day of the SONA.

“Slim chance; but best effort on our part. I think we can go over the differences on the last week of session and, hopefully, ratify it on the morning session of SONA,” the lawmaker said. The Senate has already completed its committee report on the proposed EOPT Act.

Salceda added that lawmakers have resolved “the most essential differences there anyway: the problem of bad debts.”

“We have made our position clear to our Senate counterparts that, given stakeholder concerns, we are alright with a provision for aged or bad receivables,” the solon said. “That works for us.”

Salceda was referring to the shift to invoices from receipts under the proposed EOPT Act. Stakeholders have raised the concern that since some invoices are not actually paid for by buyers, the seller will be forced to pay value-added tax (VAT) on bad or aged receivables.

“With a provision for writing those receivables off, I think we have agreement,” the lawmaker said.

Tax racketeering SALCEDA added that the House might consider introducing provisions in the proposed EOPT Act against tax racketeering or the use of fake receipts for tax evasion.

“Of course, our counterparts in the Senate have to concur,” he said.

“I think that’s alright especially since we also tackle provisions under the same Tax Code section for both bills. Anyway, we’re looking into it.”

Salceda said that Marcos “made it clear he wants tax administration reforms in his first SONA.”

“I hope we will have the biggest tax administration reform in decades enacted before his second SONA,” the lawmaker said. “We’ll try.”

The proposed EOPT Act (House Bill 4125) was approved on its third and final reading during the 19th Congress on September 26, 2022, with a vote of 250 “yes,” zero “no” and zero abstention.

Then he crosses into other States using his AI-directed electric Tesla car that drives, parks for him and finds the best route to his destination while he snores in the passenger seat.

Or of the neighbors getting their grocery orders by drone delivery at their doorstep and then paying through their GCash without moving from the house.

A somewhat simplified definition of an AI, as you know, is “any machine that displays any form of intelligence.”

Today, two of the major beneficiaries of the AI phenomenon are the medical industry and the healthcare system. Let’s have examples.

Imagine, for one moment, an AIinfluenced modern hospital.

A major flood had just isolated some towns with many victims denied transportation for days. Medical teams flash images of town emergency cases to their main city hospital and in minutes: the types of medicine and intervention were relayed with the use of AI analyzing the images.

Medical AIs absorb all records of human knowledge possible and combine them with the idiosyncrasy of the patient’s symptoms and medical history to recommend the right medicines or procedures.

“Medical Futurist” Bertalan Mesko, MD, Phd. assures, however, that AI will complement, not replace medical professionals. It can be, at best, “The Stethoscope of the 21st Century.”

Medical nurses who use AI technology will, of course, displace those who do not. The popular use of ChatGPT has enabled patients to more intelligently discuss their cases with their doctors who also utilize the same technology to widen their own perspectives.

Says Nick Bostrom, author of the book “SuperIntelligence,”radiologis ts can scout 50 images in one whole

While doctors sleep, AI machines can monitor patients (24/7) in the ICU and detect changes fast and accurately and immediately send warnings to the attending physicians. Machines can analyze algorithms and identify patterns better than most humans even in CT scans, MRIs, and X-rays. It can swiftly isolate the most relevant pieces of data to doctors from a ton of data and images. Rather than one-fits-all medication (based on an “average” patient), AI’s access to the wide industry and patient-specific data enable more personalized treatment and quicker decisions made in the hospital rooms instead of waiting for days to collate data manually.

AI is known to reduce the number of medical code searches by 70 percent, likewise.

In hospitals, insurance companies, and many related offices, the administrative and medical workflow is dramatically reduced by AI technology and effectively bringing down the overall cost of healthcare.

This medical revolution is already resulting in efficiency with the large mining of medical information and records—bringing about better-designed treatment plans and more precision medicines (reduction in drug management errors) to patients and saving time for medical practitioners.

The most inspiring aspect of the AI revolution in medicine is their contribution to effective drug creation. As we know, it takes decades and billions of dollars from many clinical trials and experiments to get drugs into the marketplace. AI will short-circuit the long process of drug creation and hopefully, we will no longer anguish over the cure for the next global pandemic Covid-Part II.

Zoilo “Bingo” P. Dejaresco, a former banker, is a financial consultant and media practitioner. He is a Life and media member of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (Finex). His views here, however, are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of Finex and the BusinessMirror . E-mail: Dejarescobingo@yahoo.com