GREATER spending power for state workers to cope with the hard times comes next year as the government plans to implement the salary standardization.
The government has earmarked about P20B from the P1.4 trillion proposed 2009 national budget Malacañang has passed for enactment to Congress, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya said lately.
According to him, the allocation for salary standardization of government workers is among the significant allocations lined up under the 2009 budget, which Congress may review and enact before December.
Andaya added that 2009 budget is focused not only on bigger government spending on priority infrastructure projects, but will also provide higher spending capacity for the low-salaried workers.
“We have had salary increases since 2006 and the President wants this continued even way beyond her term in 2010,” Andaya said.
He pointed out that the P20-billion allocation would somehow help cushion the impact of the spikes of food and fuel prices on lowly-paid government workers.
The increase would significantly help increase the take-home pay of government workers, especially for those who still belong to the low income bracket whose income tax payments were staved off, Bohol Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) officers reiterated at the BIR’s Kapihan sa PIA slot.
Zenaida Pancito, Bohol assistant Revenue District Officer stressed that Republic Act 9504 has already amended sections 22, 24, 34, 35, 38 and 79 of Republic Act 8284.
RA 8284 is the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997.
When the law was signed, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said it aims to provide financial relief to taxpayers in hard times brought by multiple factors.
This also helps to reduce the wide tax gap in the taxation of self-employed and professionals.
The law has allowed minimum wage earners, including those in government whose incomes approximate the country’s minimum salary standards.
The law has then allowed between P35-P37 additional spending power to low-paid workers as these would not be deducted from their pay-slips due to the tax-withheld. (rachiu/PIA)
GREATER TAKE HOME PAY for low paid earners, says Zenaida Pancito of the local BIR at the Kapihan sa PIA. From the time the President enacts the exemption law, until the time when the government implements the standardized salary for state workers, more purchasing power is given to workers. (PIA)
