P50-K tax cuts urged for parents of children with disabilities

Parents and legal guardians of children with disabilities and special needs are being proposed to be given tax deduction by as much as P50,000 in their annual income.

Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. initiated the filing of Senate Bill No. 2264 with the end view of easing the financial burden of families who have children with special needs and help deal with the expenses incurred for the child’s therapy, education and treatment.

“The parent or legal guardian must provide more than half of the total financial support for the child to qualify for the deduction,” said the bill.

A qualified taxpayer is entitled to a deduction of P50,000 to his or her taxable income. Expenses that qualify for a deduction are the following: tuition for a private school, therapy, diagnostic evaluation by a medical professional, tutoring, transportation expenses to school or a medical facility and specialized instructional materials.

Under the proposal laid down by Villar, a child with special needs is defined as someone who is intellectually disabled, has hearing impairments, speech or language impairments, visual impairments, serious emotional disturbance, orthopedic impairments, autism and traumatic brain injury.

The child should not also be more than 13 years of age and must be assessed by the Department of Education’s (DepEd) Special Education Division and a medical professional before his/her parents or guardians could qualify for the tax deduction.

The DepEd estimates the cost for taking care of a child with a disability is at least double compared to regular children.

The senator 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,” he said.

Records showed that as of 2009, children with a learning disability topped the list of special needs children enrolled in public elementary schools while a total of 51,296 children were assessed as learning disabled and the number of mentally retarded and or 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,” said Villar.

In the provinces, he said, children with different disabilities are often grouped together rather than have separate classes for each condition.

“Ideally, there should be 10 to 15 students per teacher. However, the existing student to teacher ratio is 25: 1 and children with different disabilities are grouped in the same class” he added.

The bill aims to help parents and legal guardians provide better support and special care for a child with special needs by reducing their expenses, Villar said. –Angie M. Rosales, Daily Tribune