Council defers approval of amelioration tax ordinance

The Cebu City Council yesterday deferred the approval of the proposed ordinance to increase the city’s amelioration tax after Councilor Edgardo Labella said more deliberation is needed to iron out the proposed legislation.

The council was supposed to approve the proposed ordinance during its regular session yesterday.

But Labella, chairman of the council committee on laws, moved that it be acted upon with finality next week to resolve a concern raised by Councilor Gerardo Carillo on an exemption clause in the proposed ordinance.

The proposal seeks to increase the amelioration tax from P1 to P10. However, a provision therein also exempts establishments covered by the ordinance from paying the 30 percent amusement tax.

This, Carillo said, may be disadvantageous to the city considering that the 30 percent amusement tax that is being taken from a customer’s gross receipt is bigger than the P10 amelioration tax. Carillo proposed that the customers be taxed both for amelioration and amusement.

But Councilor Jose Daluz, the proponent of the ordinance, reasoned that imposing both amelioration and amusement taxes would constitute double taxation, which is burdensome on the part of the customers.

In proposing the ordinance, Daluz had said that a bigger amelioration tax would strengthen the city’s Social Amelioration Program, which in turn, would ensure maximum benefits to the socially-disadvantaged residents in the city.

Those covered by the proposed ordinance include, among others, casinos, cockpits, night and day clubs, massage clinics, steam and sauna baths, as well as cabarets and dance halls.

During a public hearing two weeks ago, a bar owner opposed the said proposed ordinance, saying that the customers would surely refuse to pay the increase. — Ferliza C. Contratista/JMO(THE FREEMAN)