The passage of the Promoting Growth, Revenue, and Equity towards Socio-Economic Sustainability (ProGRESS) proposed bill will increase the take-home pay of Filipinos and will help boost household spending, Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan has said.

“Definitely, the intention of increasing the take-home pay of workers, particularly low-income workers, is to give them more spending power,” Balisacan told reporters in a briefing last week.

The Department of Finance’s (DOF) proposed ProGRESS bill aims to increase the personal income tax exemption from PHP250,000 to PHP350,000, and seeks to exempt micro and small enterprises from the minimum corporate income tax.

DOF data earlier showed that over six million Filipino workers are expected to benefit from the proposed increase in the personal income tax exemption threshold, while the proposed minimum corporate income tax exemption will provide relief to over 70,000 micro and small enterprises (MSEs)

According to the DOF, those earning PHP250,000 to PHP350,000 annually will enjoy up to PHP15,000 in additional annual net income or net take-home pay.

Workers earning PHP350,000 and above can receive up to a maximum of PHP17,500 more in income tax relief that will translate to up to PHP17,500 more in annual take-home pay.

“And so that would help boost spending,” Balisacan said.

Latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that household final consumption expenditure grew by 2.8 percent in the second quarter of the year, slower than the 5.2 percent growth recorded in the same quarter of 2025.

Balisacan, however, admitted that domestic consumption slowed down mainly due to high inflation and the decline in consumer confidence.

“So the task for us is to build that consumer confidence (and) business confidence that the future is good and that they should have that confidence that high prices are not likely a permanent thing moving forward,” he said.

While the ProGRESS bill also calls for higher tax on sweetened beverages and tobacco, Balisacan said this will not be inflationary.

To offset the projected revenue losses from the higher income tax exemption, the DOF is proposing to increase the sweetened beverage tax to PHP20 per liter for sugar and PHP40 per liter for high-fructose corn syrup.

“Maliit lang naman ang share ng sweetened beverages sa consumption basket. (The share of sweetened beverages in the consumption basket is very small),” Balisacan said. (PNA)