The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said that it is aiming to publish the joint administrative order (JAO), covering the P500 increase in senior citizen discounts on basic necessities and prime commodities (BNPCs) within the month.

In a media briefing on March 8, DTI Assistant Secretary Amanda Nograles of the Consumer Protection Group (CPG) said they disclosed the draft JAO on March 7 to “allow retailers and the general public to view it, in order to schedule a public consultation next week.”

“When we conduct the consultation, we will collate all the comments and try to reconcile everything. Hopefully, after that we will come up with another revision of the AO. When everything is good, it will be signed by the three departments/agencies,” she explained.

The joint AO is being formulated by the DTI, Department of Agriculture (DA), and Department of Energy (DOE). The target is to publish the joint AO by the end of March.

Last Feb. 27, House Speaker Martin Romualdez announced that the DTI had approved his request to nearly double the discounts that seniors get for BNPCs.

At present, seniors can receive five percent discounts on BNPCs weekly, for a total purchase value of P1,500, which translates to P65 discount per week or P260 per month.

With the increase, seniors may benefit from weekly discounts of P125 or P500 monthly.

Nograles said that some retailers have already raised concerns on the issue of tax treatment.

“It’s clear that the 20 percent senior discount for restaurants and services, in the law, is supposedly treated as a tax deduction. But it’s unclear in the law what the tax treatment is for five percent special discounts on BNPCs,” she explained.

DTI has already held an inter-agency meeting, and written a letter to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), officially referring them to the issue on tax treatment since it is within their mandate.

“In the joint AO, we can’t cover the tax mandate because it’s not in the mandate of the DTI. We defer to the BIR on what their official decision will be,” she stressed.

Nograles said that the BIR, in response, told them they are still studying viable options to address the issue, either by publishing a revenue regulation (RR) or conduct a meeting in Congress to amend the law to include the tax for special discounts, referring to Republic Act No. 9994 or the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010.