Barangays fail to secure P71.6M real tax share

THE Commission on Audit (COA) questioned the Cebu City government’s failure to release the barangays’ share of real property taxes.

State auditors said based on records as of December last year, the city government failed to remit P71.6 million in real property taxes to the barangays from 2006 to last year.

Barangays Apas, Kasambagan, Lahug, Mabolo and Sambag II still have to collect a balance of P2 million up to P6 million as of December last year.

“The Cebu City government tends to withhold the corresponding shares of barangays of real property taxes especially those shares amounting to more than P1.5 million,” COA said.

Auditors said these were mostly for the first quarter of last year and the prior years’ balances were also not given to the concerned barangays.

Since the timely release of the shares was not strictly observed, COA said this resulted to the P71.6 million balance as of last year.

“We recommend that the city government direct officer-in-charge City Accountant and the officer-in-charge City Treasurer to release the corresponding shares of the barangays in the real property tax collections as expressly provided in Section 271 (d) of the Local Government Code of 1991 which shall not be subjected to any lien or holdback for whatever purpose,” COA said.

COA also said the release of the barangay share on the proceeds of the real property taxes shall be done on a quarterly basis within five days after the end of each quarter.