Manila gov’t scraps realty tax hike this year

The Manila city government has approved an ordinance forgoing a second round of real property tax increase this year.

In signing Ordinance No. 8516 on Monday, Mayor Joseph Estrada said the city no longer needed the additional income that would have come from the 40-percent tax increase since City Hall had already settled its debts and its finances had already “stabilized.”

When he assumed the mayoral post in 2013, Estrada said the city owed P5.5 billion to various creditors.

To pay up the obligations, the local government revised its revenue code and imposed a 60-percent increase in the city’s real property tax in 2014.
Another tax hike of 40 percent was supposed to be implemented this year.

“We are debt-free now that’s why I ordered the halt in the increase in real property taxes,” Estrada said in a statement on Tuesday.

Councilor Anna Katrina Yupangco, who authored the ordinance, said the cancellation of the second round of tax increase was also in response to the request of the citizens, who in public hearings had complained that the tax increase “would be too much for them.” —JOVIC YEE