Monday, December 04, 2006 Hearing on real property taxes to be held
THE City Council and the City Assessor's Office (CAO) will conduct a public hearing on December 5 at its session hall on the proposed general revision of real property assessments in the city.
The public hearing was initiated from the letter of former city assessor Estrella Tano requesting members of the City Council for the enactment of an ordinance to approve the submitted schedule of fair and current market values for land, building, machineries, plants and trees.
Tano also requested that the rate of assessment level and ad valorem tax be determined by the City Council pursuant to Section 218 of Republic Act (RA) 7160 or the Local Government Code (LGC), which states that "the assessment levels to be applied to the fair market value of real property to determine its assessed value be fixed by ordinance of the City Council."
The manual on real property appraisal and assessment operations defines assessment level as the percentage applied to the market value to determine the taxable value of the property while ad valorem tax means a levy on real property determined on the basis of a fixed proportion of the value of the property.
Meanwhile, City Assessor Augustus Medina explained that the law mandates the CAO to undertake a general revision of real property assessments within two years after the effectivity of the LGC and every three years thereafter as explained in Section 219 of RA 7160.
Medina added the last revision was still in 1996 and was implemented under Tax Ordinance 2000-001, thus the need for another general revision since revision is mandatory and should be done every three years thereafter.
The scheduled public hearing on December 5 seeks to gather the consensus and feedback from all the affected sectors before the enactment of an ordinance and likewise to incorporate the constituents' suggestions after the hearing.
Accordingly, the manual on real property appraisal and assessment operations elaborated the purposes of a general revision of real property assessments. Its primary purpose is to equalize and update the value of real properties and at the same time "lost" real properties from the tax rolls are rediscovered. A general revision also enables the assessor to purge the rolls of the double assessments of properties that have accumulated through the years and has the same purpose as the periodic physical inventory conducted in a business establishment. (DRO)
