‘Delays in tax mapping to affect revenue targets’

THE Cebu city government may not be able to meet its revenue projections this year due to delays in tax mapping activities, said City Assessor Eustaquio Cesa.

His office needs to hire 90 job-order employees, mostly engineering and geodetic graduates to help in the tax mapping.

Hiring these employees as well as training and acquisition of vehicles and equipment for their office would required a budget of P25 million to P30 million.

However, the City Council reduced his proposed budget to only P8 million.

With this, the assessor’s office would have to make do with existing personnel to do the tax mapping, said Cesa.

Five teams with three personnel each go out on field three times a week.

“They cannot be on field the whole week because we also have office work to attend to,” said assistant city assessor Liezel Gonzaga.

Cesa said that with delays in their tax mapping, they could not realize their revenue projections.

Tax mapping data will be used by the City Treasurer’s Office to determine if the classification of the real property coincides with its actual use.  Chief of Reporters Doris C. Bongcac