Lawyer Regal Oliva, Mandaue City Treasurer, says that even if they have collected P1.2 billion in taxes in the first quarter of the year, they will still likely not hit the target collection of P2.4 billion for the year due to the effects of the pandemic on businesses. | Mary Rose Sagarino
OLANGO ISLAND, Lapu-Lapu City, Philippines — The Mandaue City government has already reached 50 percent or half of the city’s P2.4 billion target collection this year.
City Treasurer, Lawyer Regal Oliva, said that the City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) has already collected P1.2 billion in taxes from January to March 30 this year or the first quarter of the year.
Even with this, Oliva said they might not be able to reach this year’s target budget.
Oliva said the CTO reported a reduction of around 18 percent of last year’s business tax collection.
In March 30, 2020 the city’s business tax collection reached P696 million while in March 30, 2021, the tax collection is only at P654 million.
The community taxes also decreased to P2 million with P35 million collected last March 2020 to P33 million as of March 2021.
Aside from this, Oliva said the death blow for her was the amusement taxes as movie houses were closed, cockpits were not allowed to operate and all others with entrance fees like concerts, clubs, among others were not allowed in the previous months.
The city’s amusement taxes dropped drastically with P7.7 million last March 2020 compared to P110,000 in March 2021.
While the business, community, and ammusement taxes decreased, the CTO, however, reported an increase of 7 percent in their real property taxes.
The city collected P160 million as of March 30, 2021 compared to P134 million for the same period last year.
READ: Business permit collections in Mandaue down by 20% – BPLO head
Oliva, however said, a lot of businesses had yet to pay their taxes.
Oliva added they would conduct a tax mapping soon, to remind businesses to pay their taxes, to get their permits and to avoid penalties as there would be no condonation of penalties this year.
The city needs to collect P1.2 billion or half of it within the year to reach its target tax collection.
“Frankly, I’ve been already warning the local finance committee and the Mayor on the effects of this pandemic. We still raised our target revenues but then I’ve been warning them I may not able to reach it because national wise even the NEDA on their GDP did not even meet their targets. Ubos gihapon, so ing-ana ang kadako og epekto sa pandemic (It is still down, so that is how big the effect of the pandemic is),” Oliva said.
I could really see the decrease of gross sales and reciepts of services nga (that are) business, salons, hotels, restaurants, biggest chunk of our revenue. That’s where we get it,” Oliva added.
/dbs
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