Sagada folks oppose upped taxes, fees

By Gina Dizon

SAGADA, Mountain Province -- Resident- taxpayers here in this tourist town opposed the increased rates in the proposed Municipal Revenue Code of 2023 revising the 2017 Revenue Code and demanding suspension of the proposed ordinance.
    This, following an earlier consultation last month the proposed code be subject to further study and consultation.
    Separate petition letters signed by some 300 plus taxpayers here in the central town were sent to Mayor Felicito Dula and Vice Mayor David Buyagan indicating their protest on municipal business permit fees and business taxes having increased to 150% to 200%.
Tourist guides shall be paying P1,500 business permit fees from the current P500.
    So too with masseurs, coffee shop and resto owners to pay the same business permit fee of P1,500 from the current 500.
    That, on top of other municipal fees to be paid: police clearance, sanitary permit, business taxes and others.
    A taxpayer thus pays P5,000 to 7,000 and more for a business permit on top of the 3% tax rate on gross receipts of business establishments collected quarterly by the Bureau of Internal Revenue.   
    Taxpayers are most affected exacerbated by increase of prices of commodities and decrease of tourist arrivals here in Sagada as noted before the pandemic with tourist arrivals reaching nearly 200,000 in 2019.
    Now, tourist arrivals since the town opened tourism in December 2022 obviously dwindled and have not even reached a 100,000 as Oct. 31.

The recent long weekend and holiday arrivals from Oct. 27 to Nov. 4 showed a breather of some 6,500 visitors where a number of residents benefitted.  

After that showed another long period of a small number of weekend tourists until the December holidays.

With some 90,000 arrivals this year to date are hopes of reaching 100,000 arrivals by year end.    

Tourism is the major source of income of Sagada affecting most of households- innkeepers, resto and coffee shop owners, souvenir shop owners, tourist guides, masseurs, tourist shuttles, vendors and farmers and others most especially in the food business.

With lessened income, other jobs such as carpentry, farm labor, laundry and house help, sales girls/boys among others are also affected.

Vice Mayor David Buyagan said the petition has yet to be discussed by the Sangguniang Bayan.