City Council defers ‘tax holiday’ measure

CEBU, Philippines- The Cebu City Council has deferred the approval of a proposed ordinance seeking to grant condonation of interest on unpaid real property taxes to encourage taxpayers to pay.

Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella asked for two more weeks to study the proposed measure to ensure that the interest of the city government is protected. 

Labella said that the grant should be in favor of the city government and not of the taxpayers. The vice mayor said that the proposed measure of Counci-lor Noel Eleuterio Wenceslao should be deferred to allow them to “look into several angles and come up with a good ordinance.”

According to Labella, the proposed measure is giving huge amount of money to the taxpayers when it should be the other way around.

Wenceslao, however, explained that writing-off the interest on delinquent real property taxes would result in effective tax collection of overdue accounts.

Under Section 4 of the proposed “Cebu City Real Property Tax Holiday Ordinance of 2015,” there are two kinds of tax holiday or relief “in a form of condonation of the payment of the interest on delinquent real properties.”

These include full “tax holiday” or 100 percent condonation on the interests of unpaid real property taxes for the period of January 2009 to 2014; and 50 percent discount on the interests of unpaid real property taxes from January 2008 and prior years.

Wenceslao said that the proposed measure is only a one-time tax benefit, which means that it will only be implemented this year should it be approved.

Acting City Treasurer Diwa Cuevas reported during the public hearing last week that the city was able to generate revenues progressively based on comparative report on the collective efficiency of the real property taxes in the city for the period of 2010 to 2014.

“Such that for 2010, we have collected a total of P649,866,637.58 and giving out a total of P45,898,687.24 in tax discount for advance payment. In the same manner in 2014, the city was able to collect a total of P846,151,524.23 and giving out a total of P64,007,262.28 in discount,” read a position paper of the city treasurer.

Cuevas cited that the city has more than P2 billion accumulated real property tax collectibles from 1980 up to 2014.

“Admittedly, the said amount (P2 billion) is bloated as there are tax declarations of buildings and other structures and properties that might have been razed by fire or demolished, land with multiple declared owners, and other circumstances… These circumstances blow up our taxable assessed value and realty tax delinquencies,” she said.

Cuevas said the amount was not accurate citing duplication of records in her office and the City Assessor’s Office.  (FREEMAN)