Legislative heads to ask Aquino’s support on tax deduction

(Malacañang stock photo)

House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and Senate President Franklin Drilon will meet with President Benigno Aquino III on Monday to ask for the President’s support on the proposal to decrease corporate and personal income tax rates.

“The Senate President and I will meet the President on Monday, and among the important things we talked about this morning is income tax. The version pending with us is an indexation of the values of the amount mentioned, without changing the rates of the particular taxes,” Belmonte told Manila Bulletin.

Belmonte and Drilon’s income tax proposal was dubbed as pro-worker and aims to adjust income tax brackets to inflation.

On September, Rep. Miro Quimbo and Sen. Sonny Angara also had a meeting with the president to lobby the same proposal. President Aquino, during the meeting, was receptive to lowering income taxes.

“Salaries have been adjusted for inflation but tax brackets remain unadjusted since 1997,” Quimbo said in the same report.

“As income of salaried individuals is increased to keep it on a par with rising inflation, they are pushed into higher income brackets, and thus are compelled to pay more taxes than they should,” he added.

According to Quimbo, only 5.7 million of 22 million registered taxpayers pay taxes. The Philippines has the highest tax rate in South East Asia.