QC revenue collection target set

Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. is confident the city government would surpass its revenue collection target of P3.7 billion for the year 2002.

He said the Quezon City Treasurer’s Office has already collected a total of P2.06 billion in taxes – an increase of P714.9 million over last year’s figures for the same period, or a 73.01 percent increase.

Acting City Treasurer Victor Endriga credited the hefty increase in revenue collection to new tax collection schemes implemented by the city government under the Belmonte administration.

"One such scheme," he said, "is the grant of a 20-percent discount to taxpayers for advance payments made."

Endriga also said that for the first time in almost two decades, City Hall auctioned off properties of delinquent real property owners.

The mayor said City Hall’s real estate tax collection alone recorded a 105.4 percent increase, posting a record P565.4 million in real estate taxes collected from January until April 6 this year.

Last year, despite an amnesty program for delinquent property owners, City Hall only collected P275.2 million for the same period.

Belmonte said business tax collection also went up as City Hall posted some P966.9 million in revenues for the first quarter of the year – a big jump from last year’s business tax revenues of P578.7 million for the same period.

He said his administration is focused on implementing sound fiscal management to raise more money for City Hall’s drive to improve the delivery of basic social services to its constituents.

He also said City Hall plans to hold two more public auctions of delinquent real properties. The first has been set for July and the second, for October. – Romel Bagares