TAX collections of Cagayan de Oro from business permits and other fees has increased by 27 percent compared to the same period last year to P576.4 million while collections from Real Property Tax (RPT) rose by 2 percent, from P37.5 million in 2017 to P37.6 million in 2018.
Data from the City Finance Office shows that collections from business tax and other fees in 2017 is only P452.2 million while this year’s collections increased to P576.4 million, or a 121 million increase.
Engineer Leonil Mistula, assistant city treasurer, said last year only about 11,000 of business permits were renewed and issued, but this year 14,000 were able to heed the city government's call to pay their dues.
Mistula said although they still accepted applicants and renewals after the January 1st deadline, they will be penalized with a fee for missing the deadline.
Mistula, during the weekly City Hall television program, said the improvement of collections is mainly attributed to the fast process. He said what used to be days of processing would now only take minutes.
The city government's innovation, such as the launching of online payment, also contributed to the collection improvement.
He said that they collected over P10 million from the online payment since it was launched last year.
"Our online services is of big help because taxpayers have a choice for instance, when they want to get their billings, they can have it and print it online, and they also have an option to pay it there without having to visit our office," Mistula said.
"The improvement in our services is very important because once a taxpayer notice the snail-pace transaction, they won't bother to pay. But with our innovations, we can expect an increase of tax collections every year because they know we have good services for them," he added.
By logging in to cagayandeoro.gov.ph, one can pay business permits and real property taxes, traffic citations, market stall rentals, sales taxes, transfer taxes, business permit orders of payment, and even city building fees.
Aside from the online payment, the city also created an online banking system with the Development Bank of the Philippines and Land Bank of the Philippines to pay taxes.
With the city's consistent good economic growth, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) in Northern Mindanao regional director Leon M. Dacanay Jr. said the city might just land the list of the National Competitive Cities again.
The economic dynamism, the size and growth, the structure of the local economy, we’re doing well, especially the ease of doing business, the infrastructure, and resilience, which is the NCC criteria, we need to be consistent at these," he said.