New system of fee collection for Mandaue
City treasurer asks council to extend deadline of processing business permits
THE Mandaue City Government will implement a new business tax and fees collection system to properly monitor payments, after the City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) found some discrepancies.
City Treasurer Regal Oliva said the City lost around P20 million because some businesses have not been paying certain fees, such as for sanitary, building and maintenance, mechanical and electrical fees.
Oliva said the contractor that installed the new collection system discovered last Thursday that only 137 of the more than 14,000 businesses in the city paid the building inspection fee in 2016.
He said these fees should be paid annually in line with the national law.
“It’s a P1,250 annual fee but if you’re talking about 14,000 that is P1 million to P2 million for each fee. Atong nawa
siguro (I think we lost) more or less P20 million,” Oliva said.
He, however, could not recall the years when these fees were not collected.
SOP
A business owner usually pays the business tax first, he said. The building inspection fees and other fees just follow.
Oliva said the problem is taxpayers no longer pay the fees and just settle the administrative penalty.
“In other words, there are about 13,000 or even 14,000 establishments or more who have not paid these fees and these also deprived the City of millions of pesos in revenues,” he said.
The City Engineering Office (CEO) usually assesses these fees, but it has not been assessing properly for several years, Oliva said.
The CTO can no longer collect the amount that should have been paid by the businesses, he said.
“We can no longer collect it because that is a fee... If the City Government does not regulate properly then that’s the City’s problem. It’s not the same with taxes. If unpaid, it goes up every year. This is a fee, so (it’s) annual),” Oliva said in Cebuano.
The City started accept- ing applications and renewals of business permits and payments through a onestop shop last Jan. 3.
Appeal
Oliva asked the City Council to extend the Jan. 20-deadline to Feb. 10 through an ordinance since the CTO is still working on setting up of the new system.
“I’m appealing for understanding from our
taxpayers. We are hoping that by Monday our system will be up and running and I’m also endorsing and requesting the Sangguniang
Panlungsod to extend the deadline of our business processing so as not to inconvenience tax payers from penalties, surcharges and interest on their payments,” Oliva said.