IN A bid to entice more business taxpayers to use its online payment service, the City Government of Davao will negotiate again with the Land Bank of the Philippines to further improve the online payment system.
Despite launching the online payment system in January, the City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) reported that there were only less than five percent of the total business taxpayers in the city who availed the system. The system was put in place in the hopes to provide business owners a more convenient way to settle their taxes
CTO head Erwin Alparaque said yesterday, May 30, 2019, that aside from more people who are still used to the traditional way of paying, the system may need to be enhanced.
“Actually, gamay lang gyud ang nag-avail because ang system man gud sa
Land Bank, ang facility, you can pay your business taxes pero dapat naa
kay account sa bank (Actually, only few taxpayers availed of the system
since they have to have an account with Land Bank to be able to pay),”
Alparaque said.
“We are still continually negotiating with the bank to further enhance their system,” he added.
Alparaque said the online payment system will make transactions faster and will become convenient to both the taxpayers and the city.
“We encourage the taxpayers to also avail the service so they do not have to come to the office, especially those big companies in the city that have a main office in another city. Those companies pay in cheques and it will take time to process their payment,” he said.
Alparaque said there are other ways to for business taxpayers to pay like in their district offices but an online payment system would be much better, faster, and safer.
For 2019, the City Government collected about P5.34 billion in revenues of the first quarter, an increase of 14 percent compared to the same period from 2018.