Final deadline of voluntary return of SBWS set on June 30

The Small Business Wage Subsidy (SBWS) Program Task Force (SPTF) has resolved to allow the voluntary return of the subsidies until June 30 this year in response to requests from employers and employees who were still unable to give it back despite previous extensions of its deadline to return subsidies.

The Task Force had previously announced through a resolution dated May 28, 2020, further amended last June 13, that a return of the subsidy must be made by employers or employees, as the case may be, for:

— employers who failed to maintain the employment status of all employee beneficiaries before the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in 2020 and throughout the SBWS or misrepresented in their application material facts relevant to the eligibility of their employees;

— employees who resigned during the period of ECQ and modified ECQ imposed in Luzon and other parts of the country in 2020; and

— employers of the beneficiaries of the Department of Labor and Employment’s (DOLE) Covid-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) Adjustment Measures Program (DOLE-CAMP) who received the full amount of the second tranche of the SBWS.

According to the SPTF, the amount of the subsidy to be returned should cover the first and second tranches of the SBWS.

However, DOLE-CAMP beneficiaries who received the full amount of the SBWS second tranche shall only return the amount equivalent to the DOLE-CAMP benefit received.

The procedure for voluntary returns is contained in SPTF Resolution No. 2, which may be found on the SBWS page of the DOF website: https://sites.google.com/dof.gov.ph/small-business-wage-subsidy

The SPTF had previously extended the SBWS voluntary returns deadline, which was originally set on June 15, 2020, multiple times through several resolutions, to allow employers and employees time to return the subsidy.

However, the SPTF decided to set a final deadline more than a year after the initial deadline because of the impending liquidation of the SBWS funds.

Through the SBWS program, the government provided two tranches of cash aid amounting to PHP5,000 to PHP8,000 each, as a subsidy to qualified employees of small businesses who were dislocated during the height of the community quarantines imposed last year to curb the spread of Covid-19.

The government allocated PHP46 billion for this subsidy program that benefitted more than 3 million employees of small businesses.

An SBWS interagency task force chaired by the DOF, represented by then Assistant Secretary Tony Lambino, was formed to implement the program.

Its members were Social Security System (SSS) president and chief executive officer Aurora Ignacio and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Deputy Commissioner Arnel Guballa.

In the implementation of the program, the agencies took advantage of available technologies, cloud computing, and the electronic databases of the SSS and the BIR to accurately target intended beneficiaries and quickly distribute the subsidy to millions of employees with zero face-to-face contact between the beneficiaries and government.