Thursday, February 12, 2009 [ sunstar.com.ph ]
THE Bacolod City Council deferred Wednesday the implementation of the 10 percent increase in business tax during its regular session at the New Government Center.
Vice Mayor Jude Thaddeus Sayson said the City Council agreed to support the request of Mayor Evelio Leonardia to defer the implementation of the 10 percent hike pending the conduct of further consultations with the business sector and other affected groups.
Leonardia said the deferment is an offshoot of the public hearing last Monday, also at NGC, attended by businessmen who asked the city to postpone the implementation of the tax raise in light of the current global economic meltdown.
“I would like to assure our people that I am a mayor who listens, that our people can reason with.”
Sayson denied an allegation that no public hearing was conducted and that notices were not distributed to businessmen before the new revenue code was approved and implemented last January 1.
He said the City Council received Leonardia’s request for an amendment to the existing code last August. The Council approved the revised code by December.
Sayson said a public hearing was conducted by the committee-in-charge, which is the ways and means under Councilor Diosdado Valenzuela.
He added that evidence of notices being sent to and received by businessmen in the city was attached to the ordinance.
Leonardia, at the same time, requested the council to pass a resolution extending the deadline for payment of business and quarterly taxes from February 13 to February 28, 2009. This is to give more time to taxpayers to become familiar with the revised rates in the 2009 revenue code.