Thursday, July 10, 2008 No tax, no permits for institutions
CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeña will not allow the administration of eight schools and hospitals that have not been paying business taxes to expand or undertake any construction work in their properties.
Before leaving for Taiwan yesterday, Osmeña gave orders to freeze any application for building permits that may be filed by the four proprietary schools and four hospitals.
The mayor said he will be lenient with businessmen or schools that would want to build boarding houses, without being stringent on the parking requirements.
He believes this will increase the number of boarding houses near the university belt, and will help students save on transportation fare amid the increasing prices of fuel.
Accommodation
“Unfortunately, right now, we are putting a freeze on all school buildings, boarding houses or anything for the simple reason that they don’t like to pay taxes. So, we will not accommodate them,” Osmeña said.
In his news conference yesterday, the mayor said there is no need for an ordinance to implement his order, “we will just sit on their applications.”
He said he will write the administration of the institutions letters and ask them to explain why the City Government should not close their businesses.
“We will start implementing this very soon but we will start by asking them to explain why we should not cancel their business permit... and if they are not in compliance, we don’t have to approve any building permit for them,” Osmeña said.
“We don’t want to stop them from operating but that’s a step to preventing the approval of their building permits if they’re not operating their business legitimately,” he said.
Proprietary
The City has been trying to collect three-fourths of one percent of the previous year’s gross receipts from eight proprietary schools and hospitals as provided for in the amended Cebu City Omnibus Tax Code.
But to this day, it still has not collected any amount.
Cebu Doctors’ University, Cebu Institute of Technology , Southwestern University , Sacred Heart Hospital, Cebu Doctors’ Hospital , Cebu North General Hospital and Velez General Hospital filed a civil case against the City in June last year, and asked the court to declare the tax ordinance null and void.
Their refusal to pay taxes has resulted in lost income for the City, amounting to at least P255 million in taxes from 2000 to 2004 alone, excluding penalties.
The University of Cebu did not file a case against the City, but it has an unpaid tax of P91.5 million from 2000 to 2004.
Yesterday, Osmeña said he cannot allow a situation where the tax burden is shared only by some taxpayers while the others feel they are exempted from paying taxes.
“Why do the poor sari-sari stores pay taxes and these schools and hospitals don’t? We’re not asking much, it’s only less than one percent. And schools are the biggest single source of traffic problems and garbage,” he pointed out. (LCR)
