Bill exempting election honoraria, allowances from income tax reaches Senate plenary

A bill seeking to exempt election period service honoraria and allowances from income tax was sponsored in the Senate plenary on Monday.

Senator Pia Cayetano, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, introduced Senate Bill 2520 during the chamber's session.

In sponsoring the bill, Cayetano cited Republic Act 10756 or the Election Service Reform Act, which tasks teachers and non-teaching personnel of the Department of Education to man the polling precincts in order to protect the sanctity of every ballot and facilitate the conduct of peaceful and clean elections.

Based on DepEd's records, the senator noted that about 647,812 department personnel rendered service in the recently held 2022 national and local elections.

Meanwhile, an estimated 319,317 public school teachers sat as Electoral Board members and a number of DepEd personnel served as supervisory election officials.

As provided by RA 10756, they are entitled to honoraria, a travel allowance, and such other benefits that may be granted by the Commission on Elections.

For the 2022 polls, those who manned the polling precincts were also to receive anti-COVID-19 and communication allowances, based on Comelec Resolution 10727 series of 2021.

According to the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), Cayetano said chairpersons of the Electoral Boards and poll clerks also received an additional P1,000 to P2,000 travel allowance for training, which was already released to them.

Meanwhile, election workers, depending on their position (Chairperson, Electoral Board Members, Technical Support Staff, etc.) should receive a gross compensation of P4,500 to P12,000.

However, with the imposition of the 20% withholding tax, they will only receive around P3,600 to P9,600 for the services they rendered during the 2022 elections.

"Historically, election honoraria and allowances were not taxed. But the BIR had ruled that such compensation should be subjected to tax and, consequently, to withholding tax," Cayetano noted.

This was not the first time that the honoraria and allowances were subjected to taxation. In the 2018 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Election and in the succeeding 2019 Midterm Election, these were subjected to a 5% professional fee withholding tax.

"Now, in the 2022 election, the [Bureau of Internal Revenue] issued another ruling that since election duties are not a practice of a teacher’s profession, the previous 5% professional fee withholding tax would no longer be applicable, thus, subjecting election honoraria and allowances to 20% withholding tax on compensation," Cayetano said.

"Ang hiling ng ating mga guro at ng iba pang nagbibigay ng serbisyo tuwing eleksyon, huwag na silang buwisan dahil napakabigat na ng trabahong kanilang ginagampanan. This measure is a small show of support to our teachers and non-teaching personnel for the services they render, considering that elections are special circumstances that do not happen annually," she added. — DVM, GMA News