Tuesday, August 26, 2008 [ manilatimes.net ]
BAGUIO CITY: The City Government would not push through with its contract with Woodfields Consultants Inc., which would have privatized tax collection in the city.
Mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr. canceled the contract after it prompted protest from local officials and its residents.
Former Youth Rep. Edgar Avila, however, said it would not be easy to nullify the deal. “It should be via a judicial rescission, otherwise, the city might be in danger of facing yet another case by Woodfields,” he said.
Bautista and Woodfields President Dr. Reynaldo Medina signed on June 29 a five-year agreement that would provide the city a system of identification of tax collectibles. The target tax collectibles at about P480 million annually.
In the said contract known as the “Data Mining and Reconciliation of the Real Property Tax Administration of the City Government of Baguio,” Woodfields would get 25 percent in cash of what would be collected, estimated at P120 million.
“The contract allows Woodfields to arrogate upon itself a basic function of government–taxation,” Avila said. “The government has only the sole power to tax and should not be delegated especially to a private firm, thus, the contract is unconstitutional.”
Former city councilor, Jose Molintas, also a lawyer who studied the contract vis-à-vis Commission on Audit rules, said that the contract smacks an insult to treasury office.
“Besides, it is a redundant expenditure vis-à-vis the city’s IT program worth P6M that should fix tax collection in the city,” Molintas explained.
In his regular Kapihan with the Mayor, Bautista said he would return the contract to the city council that earlier thumbed up the controversial deal with Woodfields through a resolution in 2007. -- Thom F. Picana
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