Press Release
May 2, 2007

VILLAR BACKS TAX BREAK BILL:
Minimum wage earners should pay only P1 as income tax

Senate President Manny Villar said minimum-wage earners should be given a tax break by being required to pay only one peso a year as withholding tax to alleviate their economic woes.

Reacting to the Labor Day speech of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who said that tax break legislation will certainly be passed by the Senate if Team Unity candidates win, Villar said he himself is in support of the said measure.

It is not necessary that Team Unity candidates win the elections for the bill to be passed by the Senate, the reelectionist senator who is running as an independent guest candidate of the Genuine Opposition said.

I am fully backing this measure and have been pushing for its passage to increase the take-home pay of our minimum-wage earners and enable them to cope with the hard times, Villar said.

I want them to pay only one peso for income tax as a symbolic gesture and to include them in the list of taxpayers, he explained.

Villar said the revenues expected to be lost by the government through this bill can easily be recovered through administrative efficiency.

Villar vowed to support the passage of the bill as one of the important measures on his priority list to ease the lives of Filipinos at the grassroots level.

He said he expects the bill to be fine-tuned in the 14th Congress of the Senate after extensive deliberations and debates on the measure are carried out in the collegial chamber.

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