Tax campaign

A team is being planned to go after those establishments in Cebu City that do not have business permits or are not paying taxes to the local government. City Hall records said up to 10,000 business firms are facing closure as the city is strengthening its campaign against them.

Mayor Tomas Osmeña said the team will inspect businesses around the city to see if they have complied with all the requirements or settled their obligations. He warned that those that are not paying taxes and have not secured business permits will be closed.

It's good that the city is heightening its drive against those erring businesses. The move is not just to recover the billions in taxes that these firms owe City Hall. It is a way to teach them a lesson as well, that they cannot escape their obligations to the government.

With this development, the City Hall seems to be sending a message that it means business in recovering what is due to city. Osmeña said the city is losing billions because many business establishments are not regularly paying their taxes.

But many are wondering why it took such a high number of erring firms for the city to realize that it needs a thorough campaign against them. Does this mean that it was being lenient in going after these businesses in the previous years?

Yes, since last year, the city has been closing establishments it claimed were not paying taxes or had no business permits. However, allegations surfaced that there are those being shut down because Osmeña has an ax to grind, like in the case of Rico's Lechon, a thing that the mayor vehemently denied.

Osmeña seems out to prove his critics wrong with this latest tax campaign. But he certainly has more work to do to make each of the 10,000 firms pay its obligation to the city to convince the Cebuanos that he is not selective in his drive to go after those businesses that are defrauding the city of billions in unpaid taxes.