Senator Juan Edgardo Angara wants to make tuition tax deductible to ensure that tertiary education will be widely accessible to Filipinos, especially for those who cannot qualify for scholarship grants and other assistance.
Senate Bill No. 131 aims to make matriculation fees and other expenses not exceeding P40,000 tax deductible from the gross income of a taxpayer.
His measure, to be known as “Family Tax Relief Act,” seeks to amend Section 34 of the National Internal Revenue Code of the Philippines.
“The family can use the savings for additional expenses like fare, food. and other daily expenses of their children who go to school,” he said.
“We should not see this proposal as a possible revenue loss for the government. We should look at the bigger picture and think of the additional college graduates our country would produce and the significant contributions they could offer in the not so distant future,” he added.
The senator, a staunch education advocate, lamented that access to tertiary education remains problematic and elusive.
“Such initiative is also a way of encouraging the parents to send their children to school and for working students to continue their education because of the tax incentives they could get,” Angara, chairman of the Senate ways and means committee, said.
Tertiary education shall include post-secondary courses from higher educational or technical and vocational institutions.
The lawmaker noted that in Malaysia, the allowable deduction on educational expense is up to 4,000 to 5,000 ringgit or equivalent to P60,000 to P70,000 while in Thailand, aside from tax deductions, an additional 2,000 baht or P3,000 per child is granted for educational allowance.
In the United States, tuition and related fees that are tax deductible is up to a maximum of $4,000 or nearly P180,000, Angara said.
Angara likewise cited an annual poverty indicator survey released by the National Statistics Office in 2011 which shows that six million out of 39 million Filipinos aged between six and 24 are out-of-school youth or those who are not attending formal school or have not finished college or post-secondary courses.