Albay Representative Joey Salceda on Wednesday filed a bill seeking to exempt medical oxygen and other medical supplies for COVID-19 from taxes.
Salceda’s House Bill No. 9958 or the COVID-19 Supplies Tax Exemption Act was in response to President Rodrigo Duterte’s appeal to Congress to exempt medical oxygen supplies from taxes.
“This is an emergency, as well as a presidential request. So, we’ll take it up next week,” Salceda said.
In the bill, the Secretary of Finance and the Secretary of Health “shall jointly and periodically issue during the effectivity of the act a list of critical or needed supplies for the prevention, control, and treatment of COVID-19, including healthcare equipment and supplies, whose manufacture, sale, or importation shall be exempt from import duties, taxes, and other fees.”
These shall include medical oxygen, according to the measure.
The proposed law also mandates the Finance chief to issue the rules and regulations for the implementation of the said section.
“The provision intends to be general, so that we don’t have to legislate for each and every specific supply. The Secretary of Finance can simply invoke the rule as needed,” Salceda said.
Further, the measure also gives authority to the Finance chief, upon the recommendation of the Secretary of Health and Secretary of Trade and Industry, “to suspend thresholds on required export sales for availment of privileges under Title XIII of the National Internal Revenue Code, as amended, for goods critically needed for the prevention, control, and treatment of COVID-19, or for specific registered business enterprises manufacturing such goods.”
Salceda said the bill would also allow the procurement of syringes and other COVID-19 medical supplies to be tax-free.
Salceda said the effectiveness of the proposed bill is until December 2022, which is probably long enough to achieve herd immunity.
Salceda vowed that the measure would be prioritized by the House ways and means committee. —NB, GMA News
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