Billboard operators must pay road user’s tax—MMDA

Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chairman Francis Tolentino on Sunday proposed that billboard operators be charged the road user’s tax, saying the sector has been benefiting from infrastructure financed by public funds.

According to him, the additional revenues, should his suggestion be implemented, could be used for road maintenance.

“As major road users, billboard operators should pay for their fair share in the cost of road maintenance, improvement and beautification,” Tolentino said in a radio interview as he pointed out that billboards “derive their value solely from their direct use of roads.”

“Simply put, if there aren’t [any] roads, there wouldn’t be billboards,” he explained.

He pointed out that lease rates for billboards located on national highways like EDSA and other major roads were higher compared with those on minor thoroughfares. For instance, the rental rate for a billboard on EDSA costs about P90,000 compared with one on Ortigas Avenue, which goes for around P10,000.

Tolentino suggested that to determine the tax a billboard operator should be charged, the government could base it on the size of the billboard multiplied by the particular road’s average daily traffic.

It was high time that billboard operators stopped piggybacking on tax-financed public infrastructure such as roads, he said.

The road user’s tax is collected through the Land Transportation Office whenever a motorist registers his vehicle, whether public or private. As of 2011, the total tax collected amounted to some P9 billion.