SENATOR JUAN Edgardo ‘Sonny’ Angara on Tuesday expressed optimism that his bill that will exempt private schools from 25 percent corporate income tax will be approved as more senators signed as co-sponsors.

“How can you not support a measure that is fair and  just, and corrects an injustice to private schools?” Angara said, referring to Senate Bill 2272.

The measure seeks to amend Sec. 27 of the National Internal Revenue Code, as amended, to clearly indicate that the preferential tax rate shall apply to all proprietary educational institutions, including those that are stock and for profit; and non-profit hospitals.

“The bottomline is that private schools have been paying for more than a half a century a preferential tax rate of 10 percent so how could a law that cuts taxes for all corporations instead increases by 150 percent the taxes private schools pay?”  he added.

Senators Joel Villanueva, Nancy Binay, Sherwin Gatchalian, Grace Poe, Richard Gordon, Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, and Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto have been made co-authors of SB 2272 that seeks to amend Section 27 of the National Internal Revenue Code, as amended.

The bill also aims to prevent the possible job loss of thousands of teachers and non-teaching personnel in private educational institutions and save several small businesses from the erroneous interpretation of a provision of the Tax Code.

“Sa nakaraang taon ay nakita natin ang pagsara ng maraming pribadong paaralan dahil sa pandemya kung saan pinagbawal ang face-to-face education. Dahil dito ay maraming guro na ang nawalan ng trabaho at mas marami pa ang inaaasahan na maaapektuhan kung ipapatupad ang probisyon ng Revenue Regulation 5-2021 ng BIR ukol sa mga pribadong eskwelahan,” Angara said.

“Sa panahon na ito kung saan napakaraming Filipino ang naghihirap dahil sa pademya, hindi napapanahon ang pagpapataw ng mataas na buwis, partikular sa mga pribadong eskwelahan na sa kasalukuyan ay hirap na hirap sa kanilang hinaharap na krisis,” he added. The senator said that the new BIR order goes against the aim of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises law.

“The intention of CREATE was to provide tax relief to industries affected by the pandemic and not to place an additional burden on them just like what this BIR issuance has ended up doing to the private educational institutions,” Angara said.