DINING out is a pleasant experience, and more so when with fellow seniors. The pleasure increases when the original bill whittles down, less VAT and senior citizen discount.

Restaurants must silently resist this law. After all, the elderly population is projected to increase at an average of 22 percent. Now, there are 7.8 million seniors. By 2040, they’ll be 16.7 million.

Still, some restaurants are law-compliant, and re-computation is fast after seniors show their cards.

Just two easy steps: Deduct the 12 percent VAT rate from the total bill, and then deduct the 20 percent senior citizen discount.

So, a total bill for P1,500 less the 12 percent VAT becomes P1,339.29. Then deduct the 20 percent senior citizen discount (P267.86), and the final bill becomes P1,071.43.

Ask the cashier about the final bill, and they confidently give the same explanation. When our sums reconcile, it’s very easy to pay.

So I’ve found acceptable the billing practices of such dining places as Laguna Garden, Café Laguna and La Tegola in Cebu Business Park; Phat Pho in Crossroads along Banilad; and Classic Savory and Rai Rai Ken in SM City.

Dining becomes more pleasurable in restaurants with very good food and honest business practices.

But both don’t always go together in other restaurants. It’s amazing how other restaurants complicate the process to violate the law.

Here are these two restaurants, for instance, bearing the same name. One is along Juana Osmeña St., near the Redemptorist Church; the other is in Gallery along Pope John Paul II Ave.

No question about their food; delicious at any time. But the business practice is unscrupulous.

One time, they did not apply the VAT exempt sales. Another time, they charged only eight percent senior citizen discount, supposedly because the 12 percent VAT was already part of the 20 percent senior citizen discount.

Still another time, we presented instead our other government-issued ID showing our birth dates. But no, no, no, they had to have the senior citizen’s card. So no discount whatsoever and we had to pay through our teeth.

But the fourth time was the real stressor. No discounts honored because they were not VAT registered. Ahaha. The billing lady looked defensive and ready to run if I asked another question. Shame! Shame!

Then yesterday, I decided to order in. So I called up this contact center for a retail food chain. The girl said my total bill was P1,093 for two seniors, but was reduced to P877.28 final.

I didn’t even bother to do the usual computations. I assumed this establishment, having been in business for over 20 years, must have their scruples intact.

Ten minutes after, I got a call and was told the final bill was instead over P991. That’s when I asked how they got their new sum.

That’s when, too, I did my own arithmetic. They should have come up with only P780.71 from the first bill of P1,093. So why P877.28 at first and then P991?

She put me on hold, while conferring with someone who then talked to me.

She gave me some gibberish about honoring the discounts only for orders amounting to P290 maximum. But no discounts for their “more expensive meals.” Really?

I cancelled my order and cooked lunch instead.

(lelani.echaves@gmail.com)