Bontoc ups drive to get boarding houses’ taxes

By Desiree Sokoken

BONTOC, Mountain Province -- The Municipal Treasury Office conducted tax mapping in different barangays here. to collect business taxes of boarding houses.

Municipal Treasurer Manuel Imatong, said the tax mapping aims to update records on  business of boarding houses/tenements to determine existing operators and ascertain if they have secured the required mayor’s permit to operate.

“There is a need to update the list because some of the people who were originally in the business have already stopped their operations. There are also newcomers who have yet to secure the necessary permit to operate and are thus operating illegally,” Imatong said.

Reacting to reports of complaints by operators, Imatong said  the Treasury Office is merely carrying out its job as mandated by law.

 “It is mandatory for the operator of any business to secure a mayor’s permit to operate. Hence, the lack of permit constitutes sufficient ground for closure and stoppage of the business operations,” he said.

Section 147 of the Local Government Code of 1991 requires the operator of any business or calling to secure a Mayor’s Permit to operate, while the 2012 Revised Revenue Code of Bontoc requires the imposition of Mayor’s Permit fees and the collection of business taxes.

“There might be a mistaken impression among our operators that the imposed business taxes are exorbitant, but that is actually not the case,” Imatong said.

“In accordance with the Revised Revenue Code of Bontoc, the collection of business taxes will depend on the annual gross income of existing operators and on the capital investment of new operators,” he explained.

For boarding house operators who have less than P10,000 gross receipt for the preceding calendar year, P52.50 will be imposed as annual business tax. If the gross income is P10,000 or more but less than P20,000, the imposed tax is P157; if P20,000 or more but less than P30,000 gross income, then P315 business tax; if P30,000 or more but less than P50,000 gross income, then P525 imposed business tax.

“We are imploring all boarding house operators to heed our notices to legalize their operations. They must secure the required Mayor’s Permit to operate and they must pay the corresponding fees and taxes,” Imatong said.

With the intensified tax mapping of the MTO, significant increase in the collection of Mayor’s Permit fees and business taxes from operators of boarding houses has been noted. In contrast to the P7,002.00 collected last year in Mayor’s Permit fees, P13,584.50 has been collected to date for this year. In business taxes, P64,603.50 has been collected to date this year as compared to  P18,279.00 in 2013