Senators unanimously approved on third reading last night a new income-tax reform bill paving the way for bicameral conference committee deliberations to craft a reconciled Senate-House version of a remedial legislation that would grant automatic exemptions to minimum-wage earners and provide relief to all individual taxpayers by increasing personal exemptions to approximate increases in inflation.

“Hopefully, there will be no hitches [at the bicameral talks] to speed up final approval of the measure for signing into law by Malacañang,” Sen. Francis Escudero, Senate ways and means committee chairman, said.

Escudero expressed confidence that the Senate and House panels tasked to consolidate the Senate and House versions of the income-tax reform bills could complete the task early.

He explained that the approved Senate version differed only slightly with the House-approved measure, which provided for the so-called SNITS, or simplified net income-tax system, while the Senate version favored a 40-percent optional standard deduction, or OSD, for self-employed as well as professionals and corporate tax filers.

Escudero added the Senate-approved version also contained a separate provision exempting the employees’ holiday, hazard and overtime pays, as well as nightshift differential pay from income-tax coverage, which items were included in the computations made under House Bill 3971.

Once enacted into law, married couples can enjoy P100,000 in combined income tax deductions (P50,000 each) plus an additional P25,000 deduction per dependent up to a maximum of four children, or total deductions of up to P200,000 for each family.

Escudero estimated that the government would gain at least P780 million from the proposed income tax system, explaining that the amount already deducted revenue losses due to the exemption of minimum wage earners and the adjustment of personal exemption to P50,000 per individual taxpayer and the P25,000 additional exemption per dependent up to a maximum of four children.

Revenue loss from the tax relief for minimum wage earners, pegged at P3.16 billion and the loss due to increase in exemption estimated at P11.09 billion can be offset by the revenues to be generated from the OSD valued at P15.03 billion, he added.

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CONTINUED foreign inflows that boosted the country’s level of foreign-currency reserves allowed the economic managers to pay ahead of schedule $467.6 million worth of foreign debts in the first three months.

A SOLDIER who was accused of killing a labor union president in Tarlac in 2005 has been turned over by his superiors to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) for further investigation, a belated military report said.

SENATE President Manuel Villar Jr. wants a simplified application of the no-fault insurance system for migrant Filipino workers in a bid to check the rising number of workers victimized by illegal-recruitment syndicates.

Senators unanimously approved on third reading last night a new income-tax reform bill paving the way for bicameral conference committee deliberations to craft a reconciled Senate-House version of a remedial legislation that would grant automatic exemptions to minimum-wage earners and provide relief to all individual taxpayers by increasing personal exemptions to approximate increases in inflation.

PORO POINT, La Union—President Arroyo has chosen the commander of the Presidential Security Group (PSG), Brig. Gen. Romeo Prestoza, to be the new chief of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (Isafp).