Task force to drive tax collection

CEBU, Philippines —  Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella has issued an executive order creating a task force to profile, inspect, and map all real property units and business establishments in the city to intensify the collection of taxes and fees.

One of the functions of the task force is to inspect property owners and verify information they declare on the value of their properties.

Labella said he wants the city to have an efficient profiling of its real estate properties of the city.

“I’m very positive that if we can properly map and profile these properties, we can increase our taxable real property tax (RPT) rate base without necessarily increasing the tax rates,” the mayor said.

In 2018, the Cebu City Treasurer’s Office collected P1.4 billion which exceeded to its target of P1 billion for real property taxes.

For this year, the city targets to collect P1.1 billion from the RPT.

The task force is composed of the City Treasurer, City Assessor, Building Official, City Attorney, and other heads of offices.

“Failure and/or refusal without justifiable cause by any member of the Joint Inspection Team to perform any of their duties and functions shall be a ground for the imposition of administrative sanctions against the erring government official/employee,” read a portion of the EO.

Labella said he wants to ensure that all businesses and property owners are paying their tax dues to the city, stressing that he does not want to increase the tax rates to increase the collection of the city.

In the EO, Labella said the task force will evaluate the system to identify gaps and possible problems in the records.

He wanted the team to also verify the data declared in the tax declarations, business permit applications, and other documents.

Labella said the team should also submit regular reports to his office regarding the results and outcome of their assigned functions.

The creation of the task force is pursuant to the Joint Memorandum Circular No. 01 or the “Revised Standards in Processing Business Permits and Licensing in all Cities and Municipalities.”

The joint memorandum was issued by the Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of Trade and Industry, and Department of Information and Communication Technology.

In the memorandum, the national government agencies recommended to the local government units the conduct of a joint inspection instead of an individual office or separate inspection of the offices. — GAN (FREEMAN)