CH needs 80 JOs for tax mapping

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City government is planning to hire additional 80 job order workers to do a tax mapping operation as part of the city’s effort to increase revenue collections.

The city government will spend P4.9 million for salaries of additional workers from July 1 to December 31. Each worker will be paid P400 a day.

City Treasurer Diwa B. Cuevas is urging the members of the City Council to support the tax mapping project by approving the budget for job order workers.

Cuevas said the workers are needed for revalidation and inventory of real property units in Cebu City because several owners of RPU’s are not paying the correct tax rates to the city government.

Cuevas said the City Treasurer’s Office has been allocated with P2.5 million for revalidation of business establishments and P13 million for the conduct of tax mapping because it can raise the city’s tax collections.

It was learned that the City Assessor’s Office is confronted and burdened with the perennial problems like the duplications of tax declarations, undeclared real property units, undervaluation of real property units due to changes in actual use or classifications, and the tax declarations are not updated despite transfer of property ownership.

There are several property owners in Cebu City that are still paying low tax rates because their lots or buildings are still being assessed as residential even if the properties are already used for commercial purposes.

According to Cuevas, there is a need to conduct comprehensive revalidation and inventory of real properties in order to properly account for all real property units in Cebu City and to discover real properties like buildings, lands and machineries that escape assessments in the past years.

“Corollary to the revalidation, the city will be able to increase revenues and improve fiscal liquidity through the increased assessed value of real properties and additional revenue sources in the assessment roll, and likewise accumulation of proceeds from the sales of forfeited properties,” she said.

The revalidation and tax mapping team to be created by the City Treasurer’s Office shall be composed of representatives from the City Assessor’s Office, Office of the Building Officials, City Planning and Development Office, City Legal Office, Management Information and Computer Services, and City Treasurers Office. (FREEMAN)