Parañaque City to honor top taxpayers
In celebration of Parañaque City’s 20th cityhood anniversary, the city government will honor the city’s top taxpayers for 2017 led by City of Dreams of Belle Corp. on February 13, at the multi-purpose gym beside City Hall.
Mayor Edwin Olivarez, Vice Mayor Rico Golez, city acting treasurer Gualberto Bernas IV, and the members of the city council will lead the annual tribute to the business community.
Belle Corp., the gaming and property unit of the Sy family, and its sister company SM Investment Corp. have emerged as the top realty taxpayers for year 2017, according to Olivarez.
As perennial awardees, Belle Corp. paid P137.5 million real property taxes while SM Investment contributed P77.7 million last year totaling P215.2 million, Bernas said.
“The huge developments in Entertainment City, a strip of casinos, world-class hotels, shopping and leisure destinations facing Manila Bay, significantly contributed the biggest chunk to the local government’s revenue collection for the past three years,” Olivarez said.
He said the hotel and casinos will not only generate income for the city and tourism revenues but will likewise generate jobs to city residents as the law stipulates that at least 40 percent of the workforce of new establishments should be comprised of local residents.
Solaire Resort and Casino of Bloomberry Resorts Corp., the first to open in Entertainment City, has paid their real property tax as individual taxpayer amounting P61.5 million in 2017.
Joining Belle Corp. as prime real property taxpayers is D. M. Wenceslao and Associates Inc. paying P59.1 million, Bernas disclosed. The company is also the developer of Aseana City in the Entertainment City and also provides land banking, infrastructure and rents construction equipments.
On the other hand, Eagle One Landholdings Inc. paid P48.4 million as individual property taxpayer. Eagle One is the local affiliate of Universal Entertainment Corp. Eagle I owns the site for the casino project in Entertainment City, while the casino license is under the name of Okada’s Tiger Resorts.
Lawyer Philip Yam, the city’s chief real property division, announced that the top five world-class hotel casinos in the Entertainment City paid a total of P384.4 million real property taxes last year.
For being the city’s partner in development, the top taxpayers would be honored and cited during the cityhood anniversary celebration today, Yam said.
Under Olivarez’s leadership, Parañaque reached achieved record numbers of investors and business locators coming to the city, with the latest count already at more than 20,000 that have an estimated annual gross sales of over P300 million.