(BusinessWorld) The House committee on ways and means has recommended that the chamber House approve the Senate’s amendments to House Bill 7068, which extends the estate tax amnesty application period by two years from the original deadline of June 14.

June 14 is the deadline stipulated in Republic Act 11213 or the Estate Tax Amnesty Act.

On Sept. 15, 2020, the chamber approved on third reading House Bill 7068, which also called for a two-year extension of RA 11213.

The House later sought to extend it by a further two years, amending the tax amnesty deadline to four years from the original “two years from the effectivity of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of this Act.”

On Thursday, however, the Senate approved on third reading its version of the bill under Senate Bill 2208 which set the new deadline at June 14, 2023.

“This representation poses no objection significant enough to merit the constitution of a bicameral conference committee,” House Committee on ways and means chairman Jose Ma. Clemente S. Salceda wrote in an aide memoire to Speaker Lord Allan Jay Q. Velasco and Majority Leader Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez, dated May 20 and made public Friday.

Mr. Salceda said the extension is a “vital piece of our COVID-19 bounce back puzzle. The estate tax amnesty will be critical to economic recovery, as it would allow property owners with unsettled estates to access bank financing or to liquidate their property to finance other needs.”

“Having estates settled will unlock the value of such properties and allow credit arising from them to be used to finance economic activities. COVID-19 quarantines also took away significant filing time from potential filers for estate taxes, such that availers did not have full opportunity to complete the estate tax amnesty process for the entire period allowed by the law.,” he added.

The House version of the bill reinstated the provision that only one return may be filed for estates involving multiple generations of decedents, which had been vetoed by President Rodrigo R. Duterte when he signed the act.

The Senate version deleted the provision, but “the President is likely to veto the same provision again if it were kept,” Mr. Salceda said.