MANILA (UCAN): “The imposition of the new tax law, especially during a deep economic recession, will penalise, marginalise and discriminate against private education institutions with unfeasibly higher taxes that may force financially distressed schools to close down and trigger a radiating wave of economic disruption,” the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP), said in a June 1 statement critical of a new law that heavily taxes privately owned educational institutions.
The CEAP, a group composed of 1,500 Catholic schools, called for an immediate review of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises or CREATE Act, drastically increases in the tax rate of private educational institutions from one per cent to 25 per cent.
The group also labelled the new law “damaging and discriminatory” for imposing “unconscionable” tax rates on private education at a time when schools were struggling to survive during the Covis-19 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic.
“Implementing this new law is devastating considering the key role that private schools play in tackling the ongoing learning crisis that will impact our country’s ability to generate jobs for decades to come and the severe financial stress they are enduring as a result of the pandemic,” the group said in its statement.
‘Implementing this new law is devastating considering the key role that private schools play in tackling the ongoing learning crisis that will impact our country’s ability to generate jobs for decades to come and the severe financial stress they are enduring as a result of the pandemic’
The Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines
The association announced the closure of at least 10 of its member schools at the end of last year.
Among them was the 107-year-old College of the Holy Spirit Manila, a school that was run by the Mission Congregation of the Servants of the Holy Spirit (Sunday Examiner, 29 November 2020).
The association blamed an increasingly challenging environment faced by private schools resulting from government policies, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.
This has been seen in the reduction or loss of family incomes, mobility restrictions and social distancing requirements, plus the new demands of distance learning.
The CEAP warned that many other private Catholic schools will fold if the government keeps the new tax law, causing parents to transfer their children to government schools that offer a poorer quality of education.
Catholic parents fear much higher taxes will result in higher tuition fees.
“Where will private schools get their source of income but from tuition fees? My husband was retrenched from his work. We are doing our best to send our child to school but with this new tax law, I guess we will transfer our child to a public school,” one parent, Estrelita Diones, said.
