BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – The Negros Occidental provincial government is eyeing a P5-billion budget for 2022.
According to Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson, they are expecting a P1.4- billion increase in National Tax Allocation (NTA) due to the Supreme Court’s Mandanas-Garcia ruling that the just tax share of local government units (LGUs) – the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) – must be computed based on all national taxes and not just from the National Internal Revenue Taxes (NIRT). This includes taxes collected by the Bureau of Customs and other agencies authorized by law to collect NIRT.
At present, an LGU’s IRA comes from 40 percent of the NIRT collected by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR). With the Mandanas-Garcia ruling, LGUs’ IRA is projected to increase by 27.61 percent.
According to Lacson, they have until October to submit a budget proposal to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan for approval.
There is a need to allocate a budget for the province’s coronavirus pandemic response, he added.
In July 2018 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the petitions filed separately by Gov. Hermilando Mandanas of Batangas and the late Rep. Enrique Garcia Jr. of Bataan questioning the computation of the IRA./PN
