Tax mapping, dancing collectors seen to boost revenues

THE implementation of tax mapping activities and the revival of the dancing and laughing tax collectors are expected to increase Cebu City’s revenue this year.

Asst. City Treasurer for administration Emma Villarete said that these activities would boost revenue collections for the year.

Villarete said she was expecting the revenue generation increase after the City Treasurer’s Office would recompute the tax due of businesses as a result of the tax mapping.

Last year, the City Treasurer’s Office collected P3.7 billion. Collections include P2.98 billion from local sources which include real property taxes, payment of regulatory fees and business and service income among others.

Another P676.8 million was from amortization of the lot bought by Filinvest Land Inc. and SM Prime Holdings Inc.

Villarete said she’s optimistic with this year’s revenue collection despite the budget approved by the City Council for its tax mapping activities.

The city council included in this year’s budget P6 million for CTO’s tax mapping activities, P2 million for examination of books of accounts, and P8.5 million for revalidation.

Villarete said that the P6-million budget might not be much but this was already enough to start the project.

She said the CTO requested P60 million for the activity.

She said that Acting City Treasurer Ofelia Oliva wanted highly urbanized areas as the pilot for the tax mapping activities.

Two CTO teams will be sent out on the field to do tax mapping work. Cebu City now has about 25, 000 registered business establishments.

One team which she will head will focus on south district barangays like Guadalupe and Basak.A team led by Tessie Camarillo, the assistant city treasurer for operation, will do ttax mapping in the north district especially on businesses at the Asiatown IT Park.

“We don’t normally go out on field. What we usually do is do table assessment depending only on what the applicant will declare. This may change during the tax mapping or the actual assessment of the business,” said Villarete.

The CTO will also revive the dancing tax collectors that was started by acting City Treasurer Oliva in 2010, which she claimed to have increased tax collections.

She said that it wasn’t merely to entertain the taxpayers but to motivate them to pay their taxes. /Chief of Reporters Doris C. Bongcac