Cebu City councilors want uniform deal with schools

CEBU, Philippines - Two Cebu City councilors push for a uniform compromise deal between the City Government and the schools that are proposing different schemes in the payment of their tax dues.

As the city is preparing for the memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the University of the Visayas, Councilors Rodrigo Abellanosa and Jose Daluz III expect that there will be consistency in their policy, which means that the MOA with UV must have similar provisions in the MOA signed between the City and the University of Cebu (UC) and Cebu Institute of Technology University (CITU).

The City earlier signed a MOA with UC and CITU last May which officially sealed the agreement between parties. This means that half of the tax that these schools owe the City shall be paid in two cash installments while the other half will be paid in the form of scholarship grants to high school graduates in the city.

“We have to be consistent. We will examine their proposal when it reaches the Council,” Abellanosa said.

Before the MOA with UC and CITU was ratified by the council, Abellanosa abstained from voting for its approval. He wanted for the MOA to clearly indicate that such deal will be available to other schools that want to enter into a similar agreement.

The deal was reached after schools refused to pay their business taxes to the city, claiming to be non-profit and non-stock institutions.

Instead of paying the conventional way that was demanded from them, the schools instead proposed a different scheme of payment that they saw was beneficial to both parties.

And just recently, UV met with city officials to express their willingness to enter into a compromise deal to pay their taxes worth P7.7 million covering the fiscal years 2007 to 2010.

City Treasurer Ofelia Oliva said that UV’s proposal and what will be indicated in the MOA will be the same as the MOA with previous schools.

Daluz said, on the other hand, that the city is not supposed to enter into compromise deals because it defeats the purpose of budgeting.

“But since, nasugdan naman na siya, ato na lang ipadayon. We will just make sure that there is uniformity sa tanan to make it fair to other schools,” Daluz said.

He explained that the City collects taxes from establishments to earn income, and then the City Government decides how to spend it. But in the compromise deal, it is the school that was given the discretion on how the taxes shall be spent. “Mura’g shortcut ba,” Daluz said. (THE FREEMAN)