best law firms in the philippines | law firms in makati

By: Euney Marie J. Mata-Perez on August 22,2019 With the passage of Republic Act 11346, which increases the excise tax on tobacco products to P45 per pack by 2020 from the current P35, Congress is quickly working on the passage of the other bills comprising the so-called Package 2+ of the Comprehensive...

By: Euney Marie J. Mata-Perez on August 15,2019 The news is replete with discussions on the refiling of the proposed bills for the other TRAIN Packages with the 18th Congress. However, there seems to be no discussion yet on any proposed amendment to the Bank Secrecy Act, Republic Act (RA) 1405, as...

By: Nica Marsha Gasapo on August 8,2019 The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued the Amended Guidelines and Procedures on the Use of Corporate and Partnership Names (Amended Guidelines) through SEC Memorandum Circular (MC) 13, Series of 2019. The amended guidelines introduce amendments...

By: Euney Marie J. Mata-Perez on August 1, 2019 There is a specific rationale behind the imposition of value-added tax (VAT). VAT was not intended to be imposed on every transaction or transfer. Its imposition must bear some relevance to the taxpayer’s role or link in the production chain. While...

By: Samantha L. Poblacion on July 25,2019 There have been several major developments in the virtual currency space since our article, entitled “Regulating the Virtual Currency Space”, which was published on July 8, 2018. In the said article, we mentioned that the Securities and Exchange Commission...

By: Euney Marie J. Mata-Perez on July 18, 2019 Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article cited the wrong case number for Commissioner of Internal Revenue vs. Maersk Global Service Centres (Philippines), Ltd. The correct case number should be CTA EB Case No. 1786 and not 1789 as previously stated. See...

By: Aziza Hannah Bacay on July 11,2019 Our present government has been pushing to liberalize foreign ownership restrictions to drive growth. Among the sectors the government is looking at to liberalize is the retail trade. It is also looking at introducing amendment to the Public Service Act (Commonwealth...

By: Samantha L. Poblacion on July 5, 2019 In pursuit of its mandate to enact the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the Tax Amnesty Act (otherwise known as Republic Act 11213), the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) released the IRRs for availment of amnesty on estate and delinquent taxes. The...

By: Euney Marie J. Mata-Perez on June 27, 2019 In last week’s article, we mentioned that it has been almost 10 years since the passage of (RA 9856), or “An Act Providing the Legal Framework for Real Estate Investment Trust and for Other Purposes” (REIT Act). However, up to this date, no REIT has...