Monday, August 27, 2007 Seniors await Palace assist on tax relief
PRESSURE to exempt senior citizens from the 12 percent Reformed Value Added Tax (R-VAT) law is mounting, but the Office of the President has yet to respond.
Cebu City Councilor Rodrigo Abellanosa said that up to now, there is no response yet on the request the Federation of Senior Citizens’ Associations of the Philippines (FSCAP) made in July last year to exempt the elderly from the R-VAT law.
The councilor heads the Office of the Senior Citizens Affairs (Osca).
Through a position paper, Central Visayas FSCAP president Felix Abella had lamented that the tax code does not exempt them from paying the 12 percent RVAT.
That, he said, defeats the purpose of granting them a 20 percent discount on certain goods and services.
Their one-page position paper was attached to a letter addressed to President Arroyo that they coursed through Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Felix Guanzon last year.
Republic Act 9257, or the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2003, requires all establishments and amusement centers to grant discounts to senior citizens.
Senior citizens, or those 60 years old and above, make up seven percent of the population of Central Visayas.
“Granting all senior citizens a 20 percent discount... will almost be for naught, leaving them with actually only eight percent discount,” read the position paper.
The Ormoc City Council recently passed a resolution urging Congress to exempt senior citizens from the 12 percent R-VAT on the purchase of medicines.
Led by Vice Mayor Nepomuceno Aparis, Ormoc legislators said “the imposition of the 12 percent EVAT (RVAT) practically negates the 20 percent discount privileges given to senior citizens whenever they purchase medicines, thereby diminishing the benefits the laws on senior citizens gave to the elderly.”
Adding to the senior citizens’ woes is the refusal of some drugstores to grant the discount.
In a Sun.Star Cebu special report in November last year, a Drugstore Association of the Philippines (DSAP) Cebu Chapter official lamented that they can only recover 32 percent of the actual amount given as discount, hence their reluctance to grant it.
Because of competition, their mark-up on drugs is just five to seven percent, which means that giving the 20 percent discount would mean their selling the drugs at a loss.
He estimated that 60 to 70 percent of an average drugstore’s sales are maintenance and prescription drugs, bought mostly by senior citizens. (RHM)
