6-month observation for new local tax adjustments

DAVAO City Councilor Danilo Dayanghirang said they will be having a six month observation period on the increase of local taxes in the city before they will decide to grant the requests of stakeholders to bring some taxes and fees down.

"We just approved the Revised Revenue Code of the city last December, so it is in effect in January to March, there is the position possibly grant the request, maybe until June, we will look up if it is really necessary," he said during the Pulong pulong ni Pulong media forum yesterday.

Dayanghirang said he had full documents of all the complaints filed regarding the new rates of taxes and local government service fees.

"There are complaints that reach the court and this is properly handled by the City Legal Office (CLO), and the other one is for some administrative adjustment for legislation. At present, I refer the documents to the local tax technical group under the office of the city mayor, for them to recommend it back to the city council," he said.

"As far as I am concerned I want to give an elbow room for six months for these taxes, to see if it really has negaTHE

tive impact or if the requests of amendment are reasonable… If the rationale behind the request for amendment is reasonable, I myself will recommend for bringing down rates," Dayanghirang said.

He said a 21 percent increase in the collection of local taxes was recorded by the City Treasurer's Office in the city in the first two months of 2018.

He said that based on the CTO report, the city collected a total of P2,594,263,618 from January- February 2018 which is higher by 21 percent than P2,135,118,126 collection in the same period last year.

Dayanghirang said this collection is for the business tax and city fees, which have increased upon the implementation of the 2017 Revenue Code of the city this year.

He also added that as of March 18, 2018, the CTO has already issued 28,526 business permits, which is lower by 2,000 compared to last year's 30,550 issued business permits in the same period.

"My information is that this (lower business permits issued) is because of the delay of processing of the fire permits, so we have to discuss this again with the Bureau of Fire to fast track the issuance of fire permits," Dayanghirang said.