A CONGRESS leader has appealed to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to consider granting tax credits to supermarkets and other retail outlets.
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte made the appeal as these establishments would soon be required to grant the higher discount of five percent on certain groceries or basic necessities and prime commodities (BNPCs) bought by senior citizens and persons with disabilities (PWDs).
“Making price-discounted groceries bought by our seniors and PWDs available for tax breaks or deductions by the supermarkets and other establishments where these were procured will somehow ensure greater compliance by retail outlets once this new policy of a higher five percent discount on such BNPC purchases is implemented, hopefully beginning next month,” Villafuerte said.
“If the BIR does not consider granting tax credits to retail outlets, there is a greater possibility for supermarkets or grocery stores to ignore this would-be policy or jack up the prices of their BNPC items to cancel out the discounts of seniors and PWDs who would buy from them,” he added.
Villafuerte said the impending higher discounts on groceries would be “a welcome relief for seniors and PWDs, more so at this time when the DTI announced upward price adjustments in the coming weeks in over 40 BNPC items, including instant noodles, soap and bottled water.
The Philippine Amalgamated Supermarkets Association Inc. (PAGASA) and
the Philippine Retailers Association (PRA) has separately asked for state funding mechanisms such as direct government appropriations or subsidies and tax credits, so as not to burden retailers, especially the small enterprises, with the higher BNPC discounts.
They noted that small retailers already operating now on thin profit margins would struggle to shoulder the extra costs resulting from the higher discounts, and would have to absorb the losses or pass these on to other consumers by raising the prices of their BNPC goods.
Villafuerte, who had authored several laws granting economic benefits to elderly Filipinos and solo parents, supported this tax-credit proposal for the BIR to consider, after Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) officials said last week that the agency would defer to the Bureau on the tax treatment of the higher grocery discounts.
The PAGASA and PRA said the DTI along with the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy would release within the month a joint administrative order revising the government policy on BNPC price cuts for seniors and PWDs.