Mt Province officials alarmed atlow tax revenue collection

By Alfred Macalling

BONTOC, Mountain Province -- Local government officials are worried at  repercussions of low collections on real estate property taxes in all municipalities of the province which may cause them to respectively lose millions by not being eligible to the Seal of Good Governance.

There is only one way to gain and not lose the multi-million incentives being given by the national government through the Department of the Interior and Local Government and that is to pass the criteria, according to those in the know.

One criteria is good fiscal management. According to the criteria submitted by the DILG, a recipient to the Seal of Good Governance shall meet the qualifications in the four major areas such as disaster preparedness, social protections, business friendliness and fiscal management.     

Fiscal management includes the revenue generation where real property tax shall be given more consideration since it is the major and most stable of source of revenue of the local government as stated in the Local Government Code of 1991.

Records from the Office of the Provincial Treasurer show all local government of this province need to improve RPT collections. 

In the history of this province, no one has collected at least more than 50 percent of its target in so far as RPT is concerned.

It is for this reason that the Provincial Treasury Office headed by Cawed A. Gamonnac is exerting all efforts, and conducting a tax information and dissemination campaign and dialogue with the all the stakeholders to come up measures and strategies to intensify collections. 

The usual low collections on RPT on millions of pesos of its assessed values derived from unrealistic and questionable figures reported by the local assessors significantly affect the revenue collections performance of the provincial government and the municipal government as well, and may possibly a ground for disqualification from Seal of Good Governance

This came after some local assessors seem adamant on the move to separate declarations considered as “good as dead records” and shelve it to “properties with restrictions” or “others”   in the assessor’s quarterly report of real property assessment (QRRPA) to the central office of the Department of Finance so as not to be appearing as collectibles. 

This report submitted by the local assessors is the basis of the department for setting up of collection target for the Local Government Units.

One provincial planners quipped that estimated income derived from RPT is always misleading in every yearly budget preparation since time immemorial and never been corrected.

In a series of dialogue conducted in different municipalities of this province which were participated by their respective mayor, Sangguniang Bayan members, barangay officials, municipal department heads and municipal treasurer and assessor’s office.  Gamonnac said purpose of both the office of municipal treasurer and assessor is to generate income to the local governments, hence, he insisted his previous recommendations for them to adhere to directive of the provincial governor. 

He added differences should be reconciled in cleansing RPT records and increase collections.

Gov. Leonard G. Mayaen earlier issued Administrative Order No. 31, s. 2014 directing municipal assessors of this province to revisit and clean of real property tax records to come with a realistic collectibles in Mountain Province.

According to a source from the Provincial Assessor’s Office, they are in the process of conducting revalidation of questionable Tax Declarations around the province. 

They have started to “park” properties that cannot be located or identified, properties erroneously declared and the totally washed out properties before court litigations.

Meanwhile, most of the municipal mayors expressed their support and came up with their own measures and strategies to increase collection.

Some have already directed their respective municipal assessor and treasurer to correct their assessment records and intensify their collections respectively.

Mayor Anthony Wooden of Tadian came up with a plan to give awards and incentives to barangays with the least RPT delinquents to be awarded during the culmination activities of the “Ay-yoweng Di Tadian Festival” starting next year. 

This aims to motivate the barangay officials to help in  collections activities. 

Mayor Abraham Akilit of Bauko and Mayor Donato Danglose of Sabangan likewise vouched to give incentives, in form of projects, to barangay that pay the highest tax.

The capital town of Bontoc headed by Municipal Mayor Franklin C. Odsey conducted a three day work-shop for all barangay officials with their respective barangay treasurer to come up with their draft of their barangay revenue code as their basis in their collection of revenues.