The increase in the Board of Inspectors (BEI) for the upcoming Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections this October is being pushed by the Deputy Minority leader and ACT Teachers party-list rep. France Castro at the last Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms hearing in Congress.
He proposed that the net honorarium of the Chairperson should be 10,000 pesos and the members should have a 9,000 pesos honorarium.
On the other note, he added that the Commission on Elections agreed and supported this suggestion in increasing the BEI honorarium.
“It can be remembered that last year President Marcos Jr. vetoed our bill, House Bill 9652 and Senate Bill 2520 entitled An Act Exempting from Income Taxation the Honoraria, Allowances, and Other Financial Benefits of persons Rendering Service during an Election Period, saying that
the measure runs counter the objective of the government’s comprehensive tax reform program to correct the inequity of the country’s tax system and negate the progressivity of the reforms introduced under RA 10963 or TRAIN Law. Moreover, the studies of pertained government agencies on the revenue loss is too substantial an impact to be forgone,” said the Deputy Minority leader.
Further, he emphasized that while big corporations have tax cuts with the help of passed laws by Malacañang, a lot of teachers are suffering from paying more taxes.
“Sa pamamagitan ng CREATE law nagka- tax holiday o pinababa ang tax sa mga corporations, sa mga businesses na tinataya na ang mawawala sa ating mga revenue mula 2021- 2023 ay P372 billion. Ang FIST ay tinatantya na P5.85 billion ang nawala. Sa TRAIN Law, na nagbaba sa estate tax, at donor tax sa 6%, ang nawala noon ay P14.5 billion. Subalit ang exemption sa tax na hinihingi lang ng mga election workers, ang mawawala lang dito, ay P770 million up to P1 billion sa loob ng tatlong taon dahil every three years naman tnagkakaroon ng election ay iyon pa ang vineto,” he added.
[Through the CREATE law, a tax holiday or decrease in the tax of corporations was implemented, and the estimated loss in the revenue from 2021-2023 was P372 billion. On the other hand, in FIST, the estimated loss was P5.85 billion. In TRAIN Law, which lessen the estate tax and donor tax by 6%, the lost revenue was 14.5 billion. However, in the exemption tax that we are asking for election workers, we will only lose at least 770 million up to 1 billion every three years, but it was still vetoed.]
This might be a small thing to the government as he says but, this could be a lot to a teacher.
