VM Garcia confident city can raise close to P50B for next year’s budget

Cebu City Vice Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia. | CDN Digital file photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Vice Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia is confident the city can find ways to raise the P50 billion annual budget for 2023.

This is in light of the fact that the Cebu City Council is tasked to approve a new annual budget for 2023 on or before December 30, 2022, and with the ongoing discussion for the city’s revised Omnibus Tax Code still far from being finalized,

Garcia said even without implementing the proposed revision for real property, business, and services tax rates right away, the city government could still generate funding close to its desired P50 billion annual budget for next year through more efficient tax mapping and collection.

However, he said that the long overdue tax revision would, of course, still push through in a “fair” and “staggered” manner soon—as he promised Cebuanos of more and better programs and services.

“If you just based it on the numbers now, with our tax base and the increase in the Mandanas case, and of course, mag-efficient jud ta sa atong collection of taxes, without even revising (tax rates), duol-duol na. Ma hit na g’yod nato ang atong P50 billion,” he told reporters during a news forum on Tuesday, December 20, 2022.

“It is just wala na nato na siya ma achieve because for so many years, kinahanglan jud og igong pagtagad ug pagtutok, especially tax mapping, wherein you will really have to go to the different establishments and look at what they are declaring (versus the actual),” he added.

The vice mayor noted that there are establishments in the city that under-declare their properties to evade tax obligations.

He also said that the city is looking into how online businesses with operations in Cebu City can start paying low taxes to the city government.

Meanwhile, Garcia said that the city would see a raise of about P1 billion on its Internal Revenue Allotment with the implementation of the Mandanas Ruling that increases the share of national government tax revenue transferred to local government units (LGUs). /rcg

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