THE Cebu City Government has collected P5.4 billion in taxes so far this year.
The amount, which the City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) collected from January to October, is higher compared to the P4.9 billion collected during the same period last year.
The accomplishment report showed that the bulk of the City’s income came from business and real property taxes.
Acting City Treasurer Veronica Morelos said they are positive they can meet their target income of P6.1 billion this year.
“We are expecting P6.1 billion. So we only need to collect a little to achieve our target. We are confident that we can meet it since we have ongoing efforts to encourage taxpayers to pay their taxes,” she said.
The City’s target income this year is higher than the CTO’s collection in 2017, which was around P5.6 billion.
The income in taxes is one of the sources identified to fund the City Government’s annual budget.
Morelos said the City’s income is higher this year as they visited some barangays to check business establishments if these had secured business permits.
Apart from that, the CTO also published and distributed notices of delinquent real property taxpayers.
The CTO is expected to collect around P1 billion from delinquent real property taxpayers.
The CTO already inspected 9,447 business establishment of the around 33,000 business establishments in the city, as of October.
It discovered that 1,377 business establishments are not paying taxes and are operating without permits.