Wednesday, August 22, 2007 Unless stopped by TRO, tax on schools, hospitals go on
UNLESS a temporary restraining order (TRO) is issued, the Cebu City Government will continue to collect business taxes from all proprietary schools and hospitals operating in the city.
City Administrator Francisco Fernandez said yesterday that they will just let the law prevail and wait for the courts to set the hearings on the case filed by the schools and hospitals against the City.
But City Hall will not stop collecting three-fourths of one percent of the hospitals’ and schools’ gross sales every year while the matter is in court.
Fernandez said he there is no other way to come up with a compromise agreement with the establishments involved and will just let the court handle the case.
“We have been collecting and we will continue to collect unless the court issues a TRO.
From our point of view, there is no room for a compromise agreement anymore because that in itself is already a compromise. We already lowered the tax rate from 2.5 percent to three-fourths of one percent,” he told Sun.Star Cebu.
Regional Trial Court Judge Generosa Labra denied last week the City Government’s petition to dismiss a case filed by eight schools and hospitals, whose officials asked the court to stop City Hall from implementing amendments to the Cebu City Omnibus Tax Code.
In seeking the dismissal of the case, the City the filing in court was premature because the same case was still pending with the office of Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez.
In a phone interview yesterday, City Treasurer Tessie Camarillo said they have already collected business taxes from other proprietary schools and hospitals, except those that sued the City.
“We still have to discuss the recent developments with the City Attorney’s Office but if there is no TRO on the collection of business tax, then we will continue to collect from all the schools and hospitals and most of them have been paying,” Camarillo said.
In the case they filed against the City last year, representatives of the establishments, which include Cebu Doctors’ Hospital, Cebu Doctors’ University, Cebu Institute of Technology, Southwestern University, Sacred Heart Hospital, said the amendments in the tax ordinance are illegal since these go against the provisions of the Local Government Code.
They had argued that Section 193 of the code grants tax exemptions to non-stock and non-profit hospitals and educational institutions. (LCR)
