Rama wants tax assessment levels revised

CEBU, Philippines - Contrary to his previous stand, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama now wants the city government to revise its tax assessment levels of all real property units in the city.

Rama’s pronouncement came following the findings of the Bureau of Local Government Finance of the Department of Finance that the city’s schedule of markets and tax assessment levels is 11 years outdated.

“I have the directive to take a second look and bring the matter down with a very clear directive of transparency and accountability,” Rama said.

BLGF conducted preliminary assessment of the fiscal performance of all local government units through the LGU Fiscal Sustainability Scorecard. The city was rated “average” for its over-all performance for 2010, which became “good” for 2011, but went down to “poor” for 2012.

The city got a low rating when it failed in the area of expenditure management in 2010 and 2011, as it spent more to pay for debts than the limit of 20 percent of the city’s regular income.

With this, Rama has formed a committee whose members will include local finance committee, among others, so 80 barangays will be consulted on the revision.

He said it is high time that taxes will be increased, considering another findings of BLGF that a huge chunk of the city’s general funds has been used for debt servicing.

The mayor said the BLGF’s findings that have been brought to public scrutiny had challenged them to do revisions and raise tax.

As for the BLGF findings that the city has underutilized its Internal Revenue Allotment  for local development projects, Rama said he is not worried about it since IRA is just in the city’s coffers.

Rama earlier went against the revision, saying the city has to be sensitive to property owners and that increasing taxes is not that easy.  (FREEMAN)