Sen. Sonny Angara. PRIB/ROMEO BUGANTE
The government should first implement the law and grant tax exemption to people with disabilities (PWDs) before even thinking of repealing it, Sen. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara said on Tuesday.
Angara noted that until now, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) had not issued the implementing rules and regulations (IRRs) of Republic Act No. 10754, which exempts PWDs from VAT.
The measure, he said, was signed into law last March, and its IRRs should have long been issued by the DSWD.
“I’d like to see the law implemented first before we even consider its removal,” Angara told reporters after the hearing of the Senate committee on ways and means, which he chairs, on the proposed tax reform package of the Department of Finance (DOF).
The DOF is proposing, among others, to lift the exemption on PWDs, which is estimated to cost at P1 billion.
READ: DOF tax package to remove VAT exemptions on elderly, PWDs
But Angara noted that there were only about 50,000 PWD card holders, who would benefit from the tax exemption.
“So iilan lang talaga at saka ’yun lang talaga ’yung mga nangangailangan so ayaw natin na kumbaga sila pa ’yung inuna na tanggalan ng benepisyo,” he said.
Another proposal of the DOF is to lift the VAT exemption on senior citizens, except for their medicines.
Angara said they had yet to study the proposal, adding that “we will not support something that the sector does not support.”
The senator also described as “too ambitious” the list of exemptions that the government wanted lifted to offset the expected foregone revenues from the proposed lowering of income taxes.
RELATED STORIES