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Thursday, August 28, 2003
CTO urged to bare list of top 100 tax violators
By Aurea A. Gerundio
COUNCILOR Bonifacio Militar, acting mayor of Davao City, Wednesday directed City Treasurer Rodrigo Riola to submit a list of the top 100 delinquent taxpayers in the city.
The move aims to press for the collection of real property taxes from taxpayers who are in arrears. Militar told reporters the City Treasurer's Office has a huge amount of uncollected taxes.
"I went to the CTO and found out that the city is about to collect P84 million worth of real property tax from the Philippine Ports Authority," he said.
Militar revealed that a decision on the matter was released by the Supreme Court last week.
"Since 1996, PPA stopped paying its taxes because of the passage of the PPA law, Presidential Decree 857, which exempts them from paying the real property tax.
So, for almost seven years we didn't have any tax collection from the PPA," he said.
Militar said the Supreme Court's decision upholding the power of Iloilo City government to tax PPA is a welcome development, adding that the Davao City government just followed suit.
"We should have the political will to collect taxes especially from the delinquent taxpayers," he said.
Militar said CTO has also billed some 40 real property owners and gave them 15 days to settle payments starting Wednesday. About P120 to P140 million is expected to be collected from these accounts.
Militar said the city government offered tax amnesty for real property owners last year due to the economic crisis, adding that real property owners must pay taxes this year.
Aside from the PPA, Militar also urged some private companies to pay their franchise taxes to the city, among them Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), Smart Telecom and Bayantel.
PLDT paid the city a partial amount of P15.4 million for its local tax liabilities on July 8.
Militar said PLDT has an outstanding balance of P9 million while Bayantel has tax liabilities amounting to P1.7 million. AAG
(August 28, 2003 issue)
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