The House of Representatives gave its nod to a bill granting medical personnel fighting the coronavirus pandemic a 25% discount on a year’s worth of personal income taxes.

On Monday, February 1, a total of 235 legislators passed on 3rd and final reading House Bill (HB) No. 8259, which would provide for a 25% tax discount on salaries, compensation, and gross receipts from the exercise of profession by medical frontliners for taxable year 2020.

No lawmaker voted against HB 8259 or abstained. 

Under HB 8259, the medical frontliners qualified to avail of the 25% tax discount are those engaged in health-related services and are employed in hospitals, clinics, or other medical institutions – whether public or private – that treat patients infected with COVID-19. 

Qualified frontliners would include administrative employees, support personnel, and staff of the said medical institutions, regardless of their employment status. 

HB 8259 also allows the Department of Finance chief to extend the tax exemption for the qualified health workers up to 6 months or until June 2021. 

The bill’s proposed tax discount, however, will not cover the income received by health workers from their other businesses, investments, and other kinds of passive income not related to their duties to serve and treat COVID-19 patients. 

Filipino healthcare workers have long been overwhelmed by the crippling COVID-19 pandemic, with cases in the country reaching 525,618 as of Monday.

Though the Bayanihan law grants health workers special allowances and hazard pay during the COVID-19 crisis, these do not always reach them on time, while other frontliners have complained about not receiving the full amount.

Several Filipino health workers have opted to work abroad instead due to low wages and poor working conditions in their home country. – Rappler.com