City bullish on tax collection efforts

The City Treasury Office expressed hope that it will be able to either meet or exceed the prescribed tax collections this year following the ongoing gradual and safe revival of the local economy amidst the prevailing Corona Virus Disease (COVID) 2019 pandemic.

City Treasurer Alex Cabarrubias stated that the local government was able to collect around 92 percent of the targeted collection from business taxes by the end of May where the city’s collection from the said category was already more than P212 million compared to the targeted collection of P229 million for this year.

Further, he added that the city was also able to collect around 80 percent of the real property taxes from the various property owners where the collected taxes already amounted to P115 million as of May compared to the projected collection of !44 million.

However, the city treasurer opined that the local government might not be able to achieve the projected collection on real property taxes because numerous property owners already availed of the early bird discount offered by the city that allowed them to settle their obligations during the period that the discount has been offered.

He claimed that his office was also able to collect around 66 percent of other taxes, fees and charges as of the first 5 months of the year where the same is right on target in terms of collecting the projected collection by the end of the year.

In terms of collection of non-tax fees such as sewer, garbage, certification and other similarly situated fees and charges, the city was only able to collect around 57 percent or more than P202 million out of the more than P349 million projected collection from the said category.

For the city’s share from the operation of locators at the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), Cabarrubias stipulated that the city was already able to receive a remittance of more than P126 million as of May compared to the projected share of P115 million for this year where the same is expected to reach the pre-pandemic levels as all of the established locators are already operational.

On the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA), he revealed that the national government is up to date in remitting some P120 million monthly as the city’s share from the revenues generated by the various revenue generating agencies of the government.

Cabarrubias explained that the city was able to project more than P2.2 billion in collection from external and internal sources of revenue for this year and as of May more than P1.3 billion was already collected representing around 56 percent of the projected target tax collection for the whole year. – Dexter A. See