Cebu City Hall
CEBU CITY, Philippines – As the Cebu City Government tries to come up with a new model in revising its real property tax rates, the business community here has a few requests.
The Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) urged the local government to keep current market values in coming up with the new tax rates. Once they’re done, the chamber also asked the city to implement it in a staggered basis.
While they do not oppose Cebu City’s initiative to update its real property tax rates, Charles Kenneth Co, president of CCCI, said that current market values should prevail.
In a text message sent to CDN Digital, Co also asked the government to implement the new real property tax rates in phases.
“As not all businesses have fully recovered from the pandemic, we also ask for a staggered payment or implementation,” he said.
It can be recalled that Mayor Michael Rama junked City Ordinance No. 138 -2022 that would allow the city government to levy higher tax rates.
Rama claimed that the rates contained in the recently approved ordinance did not “reflect fair and current market value.” He added that it also violated the Local Government Code.
For CCCI’s part, Co said, they have yet to study the rates that the City Council approved under City Ordinance No. 138-2022, which the mayor has earlier vetoed.
The city government aims to implement the revised real property tax rates by 2024.
CCCI, the country’s second largest business-oriented organization, has already submitted its position paper on the city government’s plans to revise real property tax rates.
City Ordinance No. 138-2022, passed last January, adopted new real property tax rates instead of those which the Rama administration suggested, following calls from legislators who deemed these as “excessive and oppressive.”
In the now-vetoed ordinance, commercial, industrial, and special lots will have an assessment level of 10 percent while residential ones will have two percent. Agricultural lots will have an assessment level of 4.8 percent.
The city government wants to tap real property taxes as one of its sources for the P51-billion budget for 2023.
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