Comelec to find way around tax break veto

Comelec interim chair George Erwin Garcia

Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair George Garcia said that if their budget allowed it, they might give additional allowances to poll workers to make up for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s veto of the tax exemption of election duty honoraria so that “even if taxed, it’s as if [their honoraria] was not reduced.”

Another option is to increase the allowances of poll workers when they undergo training for election duty, he said.

The honoraria and allowances of those who served in the May 9 elections were subjected to a 20-percent withholding tax. After the elections, the House of Representatives and the Senate readily passed a law exempting from tax the honoraria and allowances of persons who render election service, beginning with the latest elections.

However, Marcos Jr. vetoed the measure last week for being “inequitable” to other persons who performed the same service and for running counter to the government’s tax reforms. —Dona Z. Pazzibugan