BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL G. BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – Despite the Mandanas ruling of the Supreme Court (SC) increasing the internal revenue allotment (IRA) of local government units (LGUs), Negros Occidental’s Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson expects a lower provincial government budget for 2023.
According to Lacson, revenue collection for the last three years before the SC ruling came out was “very, very bad” due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
Negros Occidental has a budget of P5.7 billion for 2022 – an increase of P600 million from its 2021 budget.
Under the SC ruling issued in 2018, all local government units are entitled to “a just share on all national taxes collected, not only from the Bureau of Internal Revenue, effective 2022.”
LGUs presently get their IRA from 40 percent of national internal revenue taxes collected by the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
The Mandanas ruling is projected to increase the IRA of LGUs by 27.61 percent, according to the Department of Interior and Local Government./PN
