This might also be a violation of the dual taxation agreement between the Philippines and the UK which has been in place for decades.
My wife pays into Phil-health, about 3k pesos a year, she started paying into it 2015 and she put me on her Phil-health when she registered with them. So I'm covered and don't cost me anything. Phil-health only pays a percentage of Hospital bills only all drugs are to be paid by the patience.
I hadn't read it John sorry about that. Having now read it, it is only talking about it's own national government agencies, it's not talking about international governments in section 5.
My wife was telling me about this last night as it was being shared about on social media. Another Filipino scam, just like the supposed Covid-19 payments which went into people's pockets instead of my wife's family. They were refused it because they had a daughter in Europe. No way will we even consider paying this. It's a con. When we go we will have travel insurance and use her British passport. I wouldn't mind betting that any payments made into Philhealth would be ignored anyway. Beside, by all accounts you need to re-apply for Filipino citizenship anyway once you take citizenship of another country and she hasn't done that, so, presumably, she's not liable anyway.
Not when you are a resident in a foreign country Dom there is no travel insurance that will ever cover you for that and only the better policies will cover you for up to 90 days travel, after that 90 days you are on your own.
Yeah she's not liable Graham, but any who have re-acquired citizenship would be, this new law and tax makes it better to be a Balikbayan as Balikbayan's still have a lot of travel, property and land rights in the Philippines.
I asked my wife about it this morning..she does already pay into philhealth..covers her dependants and her gov. Pension.
Tried and tested already. Besides I wouldn't dream of going abroad, or anywhere, for 90 days. That is suicidal....
Not if you are a Filipino citizen and you want to go home for a short holiday you could be detained when you try to leave and have to pay a huge bill with many years of compound interest.
whoops. is there any way of finding this issue out for certain, instead of debating opinions on here? or, i suppose a filipino could go home for a holiday and see what happens.
I think it is fairly clear in the links that have been posted already. The ones from Br28016 http://www.british-filipino.com/index.php?threads/wrapped-around-her-neck.18337/#post-213106
i suppose its inevitable that the phils government put the bite on its army of citizens who live and work overseas, after all--they dont pay any taxes to the philippines --do they ? in fact--do they pay income tax where they live and work now ?( apart from the UK of course ). in fact--what took them so long ?
I would expect seafarers would be taxed locally in the Philippines, but I don't know. Many OFW's will be taxed in their country of residence although many of these middle eastern countries don't have onerous taxation. If I as a UK resident were to go and work abroad my tax treatment remains the same until I have spent enough time outside the UK to be treated as non resident at which point there are rules about how many days I can spend in the UK during any year. This new Philippine law (from last year) is more akin to the way the USA taxes its expat citizens abroad. The vast majority of OFW's are not rich by any means and 3 percent (this year going up to 5% in 2024) is a lot for them to find.
Problem at moment is dont know enough about this and what risks of not paying are. @oss summarised my concern. If only impact was loss off access to scheme benefits would not be worried. Stopped paying phil health when wife left philipines and wasn't worried at the time as was more of a risk mitigation when wife and step children were there. I don't think systems are in place in short term to do anything. Longer term will have to see.
This is all about what is to be provided by sources into the care system and made available to the masses
There is a lot of that and in principle it is a good thing it's trying to bring in some kind of contributory National Health Service, I would not object to that but it is going to hurt OFW's and others who already make a huge contribution to the Philippine economy.
