Cebu City Treasurer’s Office targets P7B collection in 2021

Parts of Cebu City’s business district are seen in this photo taken on September 26, 2020. CDN Digital photo | Brian J. Ochoa

CEBU CITY, Philippines—The Cebu City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) is targeting to collect at least P7 billion in revenues in 2021. 

City Treasurer Mare Vae Reyes said that they have collected P4.2 billion in actual income, P1.7 billion in business taxes, and P1.2 billion in real property taxes (RPT) as of July 2021. 

However only two-thirds of the RPT goes to the city, while the rest goes to the barangays, which means that out of the P1.2 billion, the city’s share is around P800 million. 

So far, the total revenues collected by the CTO is around P6.7 billion. 

“Mao gyod nay challenge nato nga mareach nato ang goal for this year. We have enough time pa man,” said the city treasurer.

(That’s the challenge, to reach our goal for this year. We still have enough time.)

Reyes said the pressure is higher this year, especially since their office was recently awarded by the Bureau of Local Government and Finance (BLGF) for three categories. 

The CTO was awarded as Top 8 Highest Nominal Locally Sourced Revenues for 2019, Top 4 Collection Efficiency of Locally Sourced Revenues for 2019, and Top 2  Year-on-Year Growth in Locally Sourced Revenues in 2019 among cities nationwide. 

The city collected P4.4 billion locally sourced revenues in 2019 and the growth rate reached 38.6 percent. 

The collection efficiency also increased by 145.1 percent as compared to 2018. 

The City Assessor’s Office also received an award for Top 4 Collection Efficiency of Locally Sourced Revenues for 2019 among cities nationwide. 

The CTO said the awards of the BLGF shows that the income of the city is growing and more businesses are thriving. 

“The Cebu City Government is very business friendly. Aside from the fact that, I think we have the lowest tax rates both in business and RPT, we also encourage business taxpayers through online payment and assessment,” said Reyes. 

One of the biggest contribution to the rise in collection was the tax amnesty ordinance authored by Councilor Raymond Garcia. 

This encouraged the businesses with tax delinquencies in 2019 to pay their remaining balances. 

“Nakatabang gyud ang amnesty. From the very beginning, ang Treasurer’s Office di unta ganahan sa amnesty but here comes the pandemic so ni-push ta nga mag-amnesty kay lisod gyud kaayo ikolekta og buhis karong panahona, especially nga gamay ra kaayo ang business nga nagopen,” said Reyes. 

(The amnesty really helped. From the beginning, the Treasurer’s Office wasn’t so positive about the amnesty but then came the pandemic so we pushed for the amnesty because it is really difficult to collect taxes these trying times, especially that only a few are open.) 

The CTO is confident they can reach the target of P7 billion target collection for 2021 but Reyes said they are now discussing saving measures in the departments as well just in case. 

She urged department heads to already look into their budgets for savings that can be repurposed in the 2022 budget. 

/bmjo