Baguio gov’t relaxes tax, rent payments on city properties

BAGUIO CITY – The city government will be relaxing its policies on payment of taxes and rentals on city-owned properties once the prevailing Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) is lifted, the City Budget Office said.

Residents who did not settle their quarterly business and real property taxes for March and June will be given until the end of the first semester to pay the same, while the remaining quarterly payments should be settled up to the end of the year without the prescribed penalties and surcharges, said City Budget Officer Leticia Clemente.

Clemente said those who settled their business and real properties for January and February will still be imposed prescribed penalties and surcharges.

              For those leasing market stalls, spaces in government properties and buildings erected on government lots, the city budget officer said they will be given three months to settle their outstanding obligations for March and April where the same will be equally divided and will be added to their payments for May, June and July once the enhanced community quarantine will be lifted.

Clemente added that for market stallholders, lessees of spaces in government buildings, among others, that did not operate during the duration of the ECQ, the city government will no longer collect from them their prescribed rentals during that period.

The city government also suspended the collection of the daily taxes from market vendors in the city public market and the monthly rentals paid by the operator of the public comfort rooms as these facilities have not been operating.

Earlier, the City’s Finance Office projected that for this year, the city government will be collecting some P300 million in business taxes, P110 million in real property taxes, P800,000 monthly from daily taxes in the city public market, P300,000 monthly rental for the operation of the public comfort rooms, P220 million share from the operation of locators in the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) among other sources of income to sustain the implementation of the programs, projects and activities that were approved under the city’s P2.255 billion annual budget.

Clemente told the city government’s management committee that the figures she presented were initial estimates of the losses the city will suffer as one of the serious negative impacts of the ECQ to the income-generating efforts that have been computed based on the city’s income last year.