City Needs Re-validation, Inventory of Real Properties

●CTO says tax mapping operation of business establishments and real property units are needed in order to increase revenue next year.

Cebu City Treasurer Diwa B. Cuevas is urging City legislators to support the project of her office to conduct re-validation and inventory of real property units (RPU) in Cebu City because several owners of RPU’s are not paying the correct tax rates.

Cuevas said the City Treasurer’s Office has been allocated P2.5 million for re-validation of business establishments and P13 million for the conduct of tax mapping, which are aimed to raise the city’s tax collections.

The City Assessors Office is currently facing problems like the duplications of tax declarations, undeclared real property units, undervaluation of real property units due to changes in actual use or classifications, including those tax declarations that are not updated despite transfer of property ownership.

There are several owners of properties in Cebu City that are still paying low tax rates because their lots or buildings are still being assessed as residential even if the properties are already used for commercial purposes.

Cuevas said there is a need to conduct a comprehensive re-validation and inventory of real properties in order to properly account all real property units in Cebu City and to discover real properties like buildings, lands and machinery that evades assessments in the past years.

“Corollary to the revalidation, the city will be able to increase revenues and improve fiscal liquidity through the increased assessed value of real properties and additional revenue sources in the assessment roll, and likewise accumulation of proceeds from the sales of forfeited properties,” Cuevas said.

The re-validation and tax mapping team will be created by the City Treasurer’s Office and shall be composed of representatives from the City Assessors Office, Office of the Building Officials, City Planning and Development Office, City Legal Office, Management Information and Computer Services and City Treasurers Office.

More JOs

Moreover, the Cebu City government is planning to hire additional 80 “Job Order” employees to conduct tax mapping operation of business establishments and real property units as a way to increase the city’s revenue collections next year.

If the City Council will authorize the recruitment of 80 more technical Job Order employees, the city will be spending P4.9 million for their salaries from July 1 to December 31.

Each job order workers shall be paid P400 daily.