Good to hear! I heard that UK, China, Korea and Phillipines charge transaction tax, with NO ANNUAL INCOME TAX. How mush do the Phillipines pay the tax? For example, if one buy and sell US$10K in PH, how much do they pay? There is a hugh difference in trading logic between market with transaction and market with income tax. Former should decrease the trading frequency than the latter.
Currently the broker I use charges .25% for commission. Here in the PI they charge 12% VAT for this service which is 12% of the commission. Clearing and PSE fees are about .015% and a similar fee "stock transaction tax" of .5% for selling. Firms also have a minimum say 20 or 25 pesos for the commission or .25% whatever is higher which currently equal to about .40 USD Banking, savings, time deposits have an auto deducted tax on a monthly basis, it is minimal. BRI is like the IRS they really on banks and brokers to collect and unless you are a hedge fund, pool or introducing broker they do not come calling. Most pools or IB who keep the money offshore and conduct most business on the internet do not pay more than the tax listed. Tax law here is currently under review, its basically as stated earlier and if you don't file they don't know. They are working on solutions to increase their revenue so I expect changes in the next 5 years.
In case we buy and sell 10K for example, how much is the total cost(tax+comm) altogether in PI? Is there additional income tax, annually such as IRS 1040?
For a 10k USD purchase it would be $29.50 or 1470 pesos. They will send gains info to the US IRS if you are a US citizen. You will have to pay tax on what was not paid to the PI government here but you may want tax advice from a qualified tax attorney for nailing down those details. Check the living in the Philippines website for info on tax pros that can help you with that as it is beyond my expertise.