City hall tax-take amounts to P3.3b

By LITO RULONA
Correspondent

THE City Treasurer’s Office collected P3.3 billion in taxes this year, and it has assured the Local Finance Committee it could increase the revenues by 200 percent in 2017.

City treasurer Glenn Bañez said this as councilors tackled Mayor Oscar Moreno’s proposed 2017 budget of P5.4 billion.

Councilor Leon Gan said he was informed that city hall only collected P1.9 billion contrary to Bañez’s claim.

“Ipapugos lang gihapon nila ang dako nga budget for next year despite the collection of only P1.9 billion for this year,” said Gan.

On Tuesday, Bañez said city hall’s real property tax collection is P11 million lower compared to last year’s, but there was an increase in other revenues.

He said city hall collected some P492.852 million in real estate taxes as of Nov. 18. Thirty percent of this would go back to the barangays.

“We are P11 million short compared to 2015,” he said.

Bañez said city hall also collected some P683 million in business taxes, and generated P98 million in revenues from regulatory and miscellaneous fees.

Revenues from transfer taxes reached P31 million; community taxes: P22 million; amusement tax, P16 million; “other income,” P175 million; and special accounts, including market taxes, P49 million.

Bañez said the other taxes showed an increase of P7 million compared to last year’s.

He said, “We are targeting P50 million for the community tax, P370 million for the real property tax, P60 million for the transfer tax,  P1.80 billion for the business tax, P15 for the sand and gravel tax, P4 million for delivery van tax, P30 million for amusement tax,  P80 million for the franchise tax, and others, P15 million.”

Bañez said city hall also received as of Nov. 18, a P1.1-billion Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) share from the national government.