BIR lauds Quezon City for high tax payments

MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Internal Revenue has commended the Quezon City government for its huge tax payments made last year.

Antonio Montemayor newly appointed regional director for the National Capital Region said Quezon City made a total tax payment to the bureau amounting to P 423,293,634.90 from January to December last year.

The letter shows that the Quezon City government paid tax payments ranging from P 15 .8 million in January to a peak of P 56.08 million in August.

Montemayor said he has created a regional monitoring team to regularly monitor the monthly compliance of top tax payers nationwide to further enhance the revenue collection of the region to ensure that the agency meets its 2009 collection goal which has been set at 20 to 28 percent higher than the agency’s 2008 collection.

Quezon City’s big payments to the BIR were based on its high revenue collection being the local government unit with the highest tax collection in the country over the last six years.

The city now operates under an P8.8-billion budget, which represents an increase of about P200 to last year’s P8.6 billion budget and P2 billion higher that the city’s budget of P6.8 billion in 2007. – Perseus Echeminada