Mayor nixes tax amnesty for city tax delinquents

By Ramon Dacawi

BAGUIO CITY -- Please don’t treat the delinquent like you do the law-abiding.

With that view, Mauricio Domogan last Monday advised anew the city council against adopting an ordinance proposed by councilor Edison Bilog to grant a general amnesty for delinquent real property and business taxpayers.

Such urging is part of the mayor’s response to queries from members of the local legislature led by vice-mayor Daniel Farinas on what the city should do to address a shortfall in its internal revenue allotment (IRA) resulting from the confirmation of 16 new component cities which will also be entitled to shares from the fund from the national government.

“Please don’t pass the proposal for tax amnesty,” the mayor asked Farinas and other members of the city council during last Monday’s breakfast conference of city officials. It was the second time in two weeks that they mayor gave such advice.

City treasurer Thelma Manaois last Friday estimated a P40 million reduction in the city’s IRA share with the addition of the 16 new cities legally created as per Supreme Court ruling.

She expressed concern on the erosion of tax and citizen consciousness that the government is continuously trying to inculcate because of another proposal coming only three years after the last amnesty was approved by the city council.

Manaois said the publication of Bilog’s proposed ordinance apparently has emboldened tax cheats and even honest taxpayers who are telling her they would wait for the city council’s decision on the measure before they would pay their dues to the city.

The proposed ordinance was published last April 17 under the title “Granting A General Real Property and Business Taxpayers To The City of Baguio And Providing For Other Purposes”.

Wisecracks at city hall said the amnesty measure can be likened to the city’s “no-segregation, no-collection” campaign in waste management in previous years. Barangay officials laboring to implement the same said the gains were suddenly lost when city officials suddenly ordered total collection of garbage, whether sorted or not.

Bilog proposed full condonation of the entire amount of penalties, fines, surcharges and interests on delinquent property and business taxes as of the end of last year. He also recommended that the principal be paid in installments, the schedule of which to be determined by the city treasurer.

“I’ve always been against tax amnesty,” Manaois said last Friday, adding that the last time the city council adopted a condonation was three years ago, at the end of 2008 and implemented until February the following year.

Bilog’s measure is due for second reading but action on the was postponed as the city council was busy hearing pressing and controversial issues such as the recent same-sex “marriage” rites here and, last week on the proposal to divide the Benguet Electric Cooperative into two systems, one for Benguet and one for the city.

Councilors Nicasio Aliping and Richard Carino recommended that Bilog’s proposal be referred to the city treasurer for comment while councilors Nicasio Palaganas and Erdolfo Balajadia suggested that the same be referred to the local finance committee.