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[av_heading heading=’Bing pushes for more efficient tax collection ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY MAE SINGUAY
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BACOLOD City – A “more efficient and effective” collection will help the city government cushion the impact of the repeal of the new real property tax code, Mayor Evelio Leonardia stressed.
Tax collection is feared to take a hit after the Sangguniang Panlungsod abolished City Ordinance No. 08-14-700, which raised the market values of real properties and the corresponding taxes, in July.
Leonardia is confident Bacolod will get by even though it is reverting to the old real property market values and tax rates.
In 2017 the city government will give “tax credit” to those who paid real property taxes based on the repealed ordinance. This means their excess payment will be credited to their payables after the repeal.
Leonardia admitted this will affect the collections but “not so much that it upsets the budget system.” In fact, he said, city hall is increasing its budget to P2 billion in 2017 from P1.8 billion this year.
“And the best way to do that is to exert more effort — to be more efficient, more effective in tax collection,” the city chief executive stressed.
The possible drop in tax collection will pressure the concerned city government departments to collect better, he said.
But Leonardia said real property taxes will eventually be increased, in 2018 at the earliest.
Citing his dialogue with the Department of Finance, the mayor said raising real property taxes takes time.
Leonardia vowed to speak with concerned locals, especially landowners, regarding the implementation timetable.
The city council approved the new tax code in November 2014 under then Mayor Monico Puentevella.
But the Department of Justice declared it “null and void” in February 2015, citing noncompliance with several requirements in the dissemination of the then newly approved ordinance.
Revoking the new tax code “puts to rest one of the most abusive measures the previous administration foisted on our people,” Leonardia said in July. “I have always considered [the ordinance] excessive, exploitative, confiscatory, and immoral.”/PN
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