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| Sen. Manny Villar |
Sen. Manny Villar proposed a law that will reduce the tax being paid by parents and guardians of children with special needs.
"This bill seeks to ease the financial burden on families who have children with special needs. Parents and legal guardians will be allowed a tax deduction to help deal with the expensive therapy, education and treatment of the child," Villar said.
Villar noted that children with disabilities have personal challenges far in excess of those considered regular and healthy children. Parents need to pay for specialized services such as occupational, physical and speech therapies to improve the quality of life of their children.
A child with a disability is understood to be a child who is intellectually disabled, has hearing impairments (including deafness), speech or language impairments, visual impairments, serious emotional disturbance, orthopedic impairment, autism and traumatic brain injury.
Senate Bill No. 2624 once enacted into law shall entitle a qualified taxpayer to a deduction of P50,000. Expenses that qualify for a deduction are:
* Tuition for a private school
* Therapy
* Diagnostic evaluations by a medical professional
* Tutoring
* Transportation expenses to school or a medical facility
* Specialized instructional materials
The parent or legal guardian must provide more than half of the total financial support for the child to qualify for the deduction.
Under the bill, qualified children with special needs are legitimate, illegitimate or legally adopted child chiefly dependent and living with the taxpayer. This also covers children with special needs who are placed under the legal custody of an immediate family member or relative. The child should not be more than 13 years of age and must be assessed by the Department of Education's Special Education Division and a medical professional in order to qualify.
This will also cover children with specific learning disability manifested through imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations. This includes conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia.
Villar cited the report of the Department of Educations' Special Education Division stating that the cost for taking care of a child with a disability is at least double compared to regular children.
Children with a learning disability topped the list of special needs children enrolled in a public elementary school as of 2009. A total of 51,296 children were assessed as learning disabled, while the number of mentally retarded/intellectually disabled children stood at 13, 119. Children who are hearing impaired ranked third with 12,039.
For School Year 2007 to 2008, the number of enrolled children with special needs in public and private elementary schools stood at 92,429. This translates to a 27.6% increase compared to School Year 2004 to 2005's total of 79,118. Many children no longer pursue secondary education or stay in elementary schools for an extended period of time.
"In the face of rising cost of petroleum products, transportation services and basic commodities, this bill aims to help parents and legal guardians provide better support and special care for a child with special needs by reducing their expenses," he said
10 comments:
Perfect!!! This is what we need. Indeed, the cost of therapy and other things are mind blowing. I hope this becomes LAW right away!
This will be a great help for us parents. Let us strengthen the initiative of Sen.Villar through a campaign and social awareness.
it could really help us parents to lessen the burden of expensive treatments and other special interventions for our special children... God bless Sen. Manny Villar and other people who may help this law enacted.
I hope other law makers will support this bill and enact it into law.
This is a better legislation than having Camarines Sur divided into more than 3 provinces.
This will be of better help to us parents of a child with autism, our monthly salaries are direct source of taxation, being government employees. We just make both ends meet so we can provide for the needed therapies for our child to be able to cope up.
this may be a breather and a sigh of relief.... hoping this will be enacted soon.
Sen. Villar, I agreed that we really need this one and we will support this but sana wala na po ang age bracket..We all know that this is a life long treatment for our kids but for a single parent of three and my son, who is turning 14 this October and also has a maintenance for his seizure.. I'm sad that my son can not enjoy anymore this bill and i guess, also to all parents who have the same case like me..I am also a govt employee and m having a hard making both ends meet... Sana po wala na lng age bracket... God bless!!!
Hope this will be approved as soon as possible. The cost of therapy is very high and as an ordinary employee with 3 kids, it's really hard to cope up with the maintenance expenses.salized
Sen. Villar, thank you for sponsoring this bill. However, I hope there will be no age limit.. ASD is a lifelong disability, why set a limit on the age of the child for eligibility?
MAY PRES. BENIGNO AQUINO SEE THE BURDEN OF BRINGING OUR CHILDREN WITH DISABILITY TO THERAPY CENTERS. mAY HE EXTEND HELP TO US PARENTS BY HELPING IN THE FINAL APPROVAL OF THE BILL FILED BY SENATOR VILLAR. THANKS
Thank you in advance Sen. Villar! Sana po magtuloy tuloy na eto at maipasa na sa lalong madaling panahon. God bless the asd kids and other special children. They are angels, not burden :)
Yes, agree ako na dapat walang age limit. thank you :)
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