House panel OKs bill on VAT exemption for PWDs

Photo by Hotaru Niitsu/INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines – The House of Representatives ways and means committee on Monday approved a bill seeking to exempt persons with disabilities (PWDs) from value-added tax (VAT).

The approved substitute bill, consolidating House Bill 1039 of Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez and House Bill 3826 of Pasay City Rep. Imelda Calixto-Rubiano, moved on to plenary debate after hurdling the committee level.

The bill seeks to amend Section 32 of Republic Act 7277, or the “Magna Carta for Persons with Disability,” to say that PWDs will be exempted from VAT in addition to the 20 percent discount they are already enjoying for goods and services.

Romualdez said the following would be exempted from VAT: medical and dental services; purchase of medicines in all drugstores; public railways, skyways and bus fare; admission fees charged by theaters, cinema houses, concert halls, circuses, carnivals and other places of culture, leisure and amusement; and all services in hotels and similar lodging establishments, restaurants, and recreation centers.

Ways and means panel chair Marikina Rep. Romero “Miro” Quimbo said granting PWDs tax exemption would make them more productive members of society.

“What we seek to do is to convert a non performing asset, not just an asset but in fact a burden, to become even more productive. So today, they are a medical burden; they are burden to the family, etc., a great number of them anyway. But with these (VAT exemptions), these are just drops in the bucket towards their mainstreaming,” Quimbo said.