By Doreen S. Galindez SENATE MINORITY Leader Ralph Recto has once again appealed for the sooner release of the implementing rules and regulations of the law that will grant tax exemption for persons with disabilities. Recto said the Persons with Disability (PWD) law remains “in limbo” after the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) has yet to be issued by the multi-agency body drafting it. "I appeal once again to our friends in the executive that the IRR of Republic Act 10754 will be released soon. It's the missing link in its full implementation," Recto said.
Signed into law on March 23 by former President Benigno Aquino III, RA 10754 exempts PWDs from all sales taxes on certain goods and services, such as transport fares, medicines, medical and dental services, and laboratory fees, raising the discount to 32 percent. The law also grants a P25,000 annual income tax deduction to relatives within the fourth civil degree of consanguinity or affinity, who are caring for and living with PWDs. Under the said law, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) will lead the drafting of the IRR with the Department of Health (DOH), Department of Finance (DOF), and the National Council on Disability Affairs as other agencies in the drafting body. Despite the delay, Recto said he is not giving in to the “conspiracy theory” that the IRR is being deliberately withheld due to the plan of the government’s economic managers to repeal all tax discounts of PWDs. "I cling to the belief that the better angels of man's nature will prevail in the end. That compassion would triumph over cold fiscal numbers," Recto said. Without the IRR, which defined how the provisions of the law will be implemented, availed of, and executed, RA 10754 is like “a new car which sits in the garage but can't be driven out yet,” Recto said. “There ought to be no delay because there is an existing template, the one granted to senior citizens, insofar as discounts on purchases are made,” Recto added. Despite the lack of a substitute set of rules in case the drafting body fails to make one, it is still important to implement the law, the senator emphasized. "Unless I have seen a written obituary from the DOF and the DSWD that they're burying [the PWD law], I am not giving up,” he said. “No civil servant would like to be remembered as undertakers of this measure.” E
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